10,000 partner school students join us at Thorpe Park.
On 4 October 2022, ACS International Schools hosted STEAM 2022, a first-of-its-kind educational Partnerships event at Thorpe Park, which engaged over 10,000 students from across England. The main aim of the event was for each student to leave inspired by the high-profile organisations that offered exciting STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths) learning experiences.
During the inaugural event, which aimed to inspire career paths in STEAM, students from local state and independent schools experienced the magic of the diverse organisations in attendance, with the opportunity to interact with over 200 activities and take part in one of 18 science shows that were hosted across the park on the day.
students had accomplished 51,318 hours of learning on the day.
ACS recruited the help of 75 inspiring industry partners to put on the event, including The Royal Philharmonic, The RAF, Mercedes F1, The Bloodhound SuperSonic Car, Mobile Farms, Titan the Robot, Intel, The Police, Fire Brigade, Ambulance Service, pharmaceutical companies, Sporting companies, Into Film, Ted Talks, Satro, The Queens Colour Squadron, Helicopters, with jet-powered human travel offered by Gravity and three full sized steam engines on display, just to name a few.
Building on the power of gamification in education, attending students participated in educational STEAM activities with the exhibitors to earn their coupons for rides on Thorpe Park’s rollercoasters. The gamification process showed that students had accomplished 51,318 hours of learning on the day, with 42,765 hours of pre-learning at school. We provided curriculum information against the National Curriculum for each activity and also offered pre-learning and post learning activities as well as a digital badge for taking part – which aimed to extend the students’ learning significantly beyond the day itself.
STEAM 2022 demonstrated ACS's charitable mission, which is to collaborate with state and independent schools across the region to inspire learning through innovative, relevant and accessible initiatives. We worked closely with charities such as UTCAI and Inner Wings, children’s hospices and several special schools to ensure that the event was as accessible as possible to children that would not normally be able to attend such an event.
Nevertheless, STEAM 2022 would not have been possible without the support of all the headteachers, staff, parents and students at ACS that helped us to plan the activities in the run up to the event. On the day, 213 ACS students came along to volunteer, alongside many more from the teaching and parental body at ACS, enabling them to gain invaluable community and volunteering experience.
Events like these keep the ACS Partnerships team busy all year. In the last two years alone our partnerships programme has facilitated 606,349 hours of student interaction with partner schools, 42,365 hours of teacher training and have offered extensive resources, events and opportunities across our network. By working closely with industry to provide opportunities such as these and bring companies, charities, universities and schools together, we are able to achieve our mission to enhance the education of ALL children.
Our online impact report of STEAM 2022 can be found on the website: www.steam2022.org
GRAEME LAWRIE MBE, IS THE ACS INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS PARTNERSHIPS DIRECTOR
“The Thorpe Park Event was the first STEM event I have been to that had a wide variety of subjects covered, ranging from engineering to medical. Many of the activities showed me how less fortunate people are benefiting from STEM, such as the MERU Project which is building specially designed wheelchairs for disabled children. Also, seeing all of the projects together really showed me how expansive STEM is."
