All Steamed Up by Mr. & Mrs. Crehan

Today we have a two part guest blog from Mr. & Mrs. Crehan, our Principals, who were inspired by all that they saw going on at school during STEAM Day this week.
 

STEAM Day is a highlight of the year, eagerly anticipated by pupils and staff alike. A day when the creativity which is at the heart of engineering is brought to life.

And what a palette of activities the children enjoyed on Wednesday this week. Following an early morning rocket launch, the younger children programmed Beebot robots, made self opening flowers, created bubble pictures and herb brushes, and built (really quite scary) mini catapults. Meanwhile, over at the Upper School, the children grappled with logic, a Smarties maths challenge, health and safety and railway engineering problems, and created a variety of structures using balloons, newspaper, pasta and marshmallows. From the intricacy of creating flowers and butterflies using chromatography to the raising of a 200kg beam of wood using Neolithic technology, the children thoroughly enjoyed exploring and developing their engineering skills.

The day was intended to be exciting and enjoyable for the children, but it was also designed to encourage skills which will be of value in their adult lives. We want our pupils to relish challenges, to work effectively in teams, to hypothesise and test out their ideas, to take risks, and to see failure as a step towards success. A day such as this helps children to 'think outside the box' and to dare to be different. It shows them that real life problems require a wide range of skills, collaboration and perseverance. To stimulate such thinking, the older children met online with a panel of four engineers (the fact that all four were women was significant) then considered how their own interests and attitudes might suit them to careers as diverse as Data Scientist, Vehicle Dynamics Engineer, Sustainability Engineer, Project Manager, Ergonomist and Design Engineer.

Children are by nature curious and creative, and they respond fantastically to activities such as those which were provided on Wednesday. Their enthusiasm was palpable. But so was that of the staff and parents who were leading the activities. The adults involved clearly enjoyed unleashing their own creative energies and sharing their passion for learning with the pupils. The pupils relished the challenges set, responded eagerly and impressed us all with their ideas, teamwork and determination.

We are so fortunate at St. Helen's College to have such committed, enthusiastic and expert staff, and such supportive parents. On behalf of the pupils, I would like to say a big thank you to the staff and parents whose creative genius made our STEAM Day such a success.

Mr. Crehan
 

The word 'Enthusiasm' is derived from the Greek, meaning 'God within' and used to be applied to those in a divine frenzy i.e. passionate and inspired. The children on STEAM Day were eager to explain their activities with their eyes shining!

Ideally when the children choose their direction in life they will do something that inspires them and that they are passionate about.The beauty of STEAM Day is that, being a combination of arts and science, it gives them the opportunity to use their skills in inventing and creating, which gives them a taste of what may lie ahead in the world of work.

Just as Plato suggests that we lay out various tools of the different professions to very young children to watch where they naturally lean, our children at St. Helen's College are getting an early feel for many different ways to be creative with a sense of purpose; skills which may lead them to be passionate about a particular career when their time comes. They may also  be more aware of the many career possibilities out there, and perhaps create their own path (as one notable ex-pupil did by being passionate about robots while at school, and then going on to supply parts from Chinese factories to British companies from the comfort of his bedroom aged 14. He is now the CEO of a multimillion pound company. Or our daughter Lucy, who decided to teach in the best performing countries around the world, wrote a book, and is now advising countries on their education policies.) This is so important; the world when our current pupils finish their education will look very different from today.

So just as the good fairies in Sleeping Beauty made wishes for the future of their princess, our wish is that the children of St. Helen's College will boldly create and innovate a career which they are passionate about, as that will make them fulfilled and purposeful for their whole lives.

Mrs. Crehan