Starting young: science and engineering at prep school

From making kites and boomerangs to building bridges, prep schools are determined to make STEM subjects exciting.

St Faith’s in Cambridge, which won the 2019 TES Prep School of the Year Award, has opened a £2 million STEM centre called The Hub and girls and boys study engineering for an hour a week from the age of seven.

The school’s head of engineering is Dr Nicola Hoyle, who studied maths at Oxford, completed a PhD in computational engineering and later worked with the Williams Formula 1 team and the visual effects team behind films like Captain America: The First Avenger, Fast & Furious 6 and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

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Dr Hoyle’s aim is to make engineering exciting. “Engineering is about being able to find a practical solution to a problem,” she says. “Last year I said to the year 8s: ‘If you had the materials and resources what would you build?’

We then had 20 pupils building projects that ranged from a coin sorter with a motor that sorted coins based on their size and surface area to a device to help people with only one hand open jars easily. They are so creative at this age.

“What I’m aiming to do is teach children what engineering is, how fun it is, and dispel the idea that engineering is just a hard hat on a building site.”

Beachborough, a co-ed prep school near Brackley in Northamptonshire, is equally keen to show pupils how exciting STEM subjects can be. It has strong links to the local Formula 1 racing teams and automation companies (the Silverstone motor racing track is only six miles away) and pupils learn about careers in innovation and technology.

The school’s TED Centre (technology, engineering and design) gives children the opportunity to learn skills that will stand them in good stead in the future. They learn everything from electronics, 3D printing, robotics, coding, building websites, laser cutting and CAD software to packaging design, graphics, product development and marketing.

The pupils use cutting edge technology in their everyday TED lessons, such as calculating the way that aerodynamic design impacts on the speed of electric cars (they have designed and built two electric Goblin cars which they successfully race themselves).

They use drones in maths to calculate areas of the school grounds and learn about the human body in science by taking an augmented reality journey that shows how food travels from the mouth to the stomach and beyond.

“The children have stopped thinking that maths and science only exist in the classroom,” says headmaster Christian Pritchard, who studied design technology at university.

“They want to know the practical application of everything so they test their designs, then modify and change them – just as they would in real world business.”

At Beaudesert Park School in the Cotswolds, head of design and technology (DT) Lee Waters reckons it’s never too early to start thinking about STEM careers.]

One of the school’s initiatives is an annual year 6 event where children become the virtual employees of a bath bomb company.

“The activities range from designing and making branded packaging to creating moulds, costing the product and testing the solubility of competitor products – so the day spans science, art, maths, DT and ICT,” says Mr Waters.

“Sweet smelling bath bombs might be the thing the children take home but they also come away understanding more about how interesting science and technology subjects are, how they inter-relate and how crucial they are to business.”