Education Scotland is delighted to announce that Spartans Community Foundation in North Edinburgh has become the first community learning and development provider to achieve the STEM Nation Award.
Debbi McCulloch, CEO at Spartans Community Foundation, said:
“We are honoured to receive the STEM Nation Award, as it is a proud moment for us all as we receive national recognition of the outstanding STEM initiatives taking place here at the Spartans Community Foundation, and within the local primary schools we work with. I feel deeply proud of our staff whose dedication and innovation has made this possible. The broader range of STEM pathways now available in North Edinburgh is enabling young people to enjoy lots of fun STEM activities whilst providing a positive, and engaging, learning environment and the chance to try new things.”
Graeme Logan, Chief Executive of Education Scotland, said:
“Congratulations to Spartans Community Foundation on becoming the first community learning and development provider to achieve the STEM Nation Award. Spartans does a lot of great work to empower the local community including its signature STEM learning programme for schools encouraging exploration, imagination and perseverance using codeable robots. This success is very well deserved and we hope it will encourage other community learning and development providers to apply for the STEM Nation Award.”
Minister for Higher and Further Education Graeme Dey said:
“This award is testament to the commitment and hard work of dedicated staff at Spartans in providing opportunities for young people across communities to gain the valuable skills needed for learning, life and work.
“It underlines the impact which community learning and development can have in empowering people, individually and collectively, to make positive changes in their lives and in their communities.”
The STEM Nation Award programme has been developed to celebrate, promote and build on effective STEM practice across Scotland. All settings registered for the programme are committed to providing high-quality STEM learning experiences to ensure their learners develop the STEM skills, knowledge and capabilities required to adapt and thrive in a rapidly-changing world. The diagram below shows the new STEM Nation Award roadmap for practitioners working in the community learning and development (CLD) sector:
David Service, , Senior Education Officer at Spartans Community Foundation, said:
“Engaging with the STEM Nation Award has provided The Spartans Community Foundation a fantastic opportunity to really evaluate the impact of our STEM programmes across the CLD sector. The STEM Nation Award provides a very detailed and structured framework which allowed us to truly reflect on our strengths and shape our future endeavours as part of our action plan. We have been able to identify growth initiatives, increase our awareness of partnership collaboration opportunities, and have been able to widen our reach in the CLD setting as a result.
One of the great benefits of the STEM Nation Award is that you can join at any stage and there are dedicated members of the team who are willing to help at every stage of the application! All settings and providers can access the materials provided by the STEM Nation team and this can allow for the development of a current project or even the creation of something new and unique!
Our team at Spartans will be forever grateful to the STEM Nation Award and are happy to share our journey with others in the CLD sector as they embark on their own journey and strive to dream big and dream fierce.”
Building on from Spartans Community Foundation’s recent success, Education Scotland invite further expressions of interest from the CLD sector in the STEM Nation Award programme. Youth groups, family learning teams and community-based adult learning providers operating on a not-for-profit basis are all eligible to apply for the award in recognition of the work they are doing to make sciences, engineering, technologies and mathematics (STEM) more accessible and inclusive for the communities they serve. CLD providers should click here to register for the STEM Nation Award programme. Registered settings will receive termly newsletters and email updates about the programme. You will also have access to our team of STEM Education Officers to support you with STEM developments and improvement planning in your setting or organisation.
You can access the full suite of CLD guidance documents here.
As part of Education Scotland’s STEM Nation Open Day programme, Spartans Community Foundation will open their doors in the new year to CLD practitioners and other educators from across Scotland to share their journey towards achieving the STEM Nation Award. Practitioners will hear from learners about the impact of STEM in the community, learn more about the relationships Spartans have developed with STEM industry partners and find out how the staff at the foundation and local primary schools have been able to access training opportunities supporting them in the delivery of STEM experiences. Staff from the Education Scotland STEM team will also be on hand to provide more information about the programme and help you identify your next steps in your STEM Nation journey. Tickets for the event are available free of charge from Education Scotland and will be available on the Education Scotland Events page in due course.
