Encouraging Small People to Think Big

This week has been an extra-special half term for me. I have had the opportunity to visit CERN in Geneva, virtually. Thanks to STEM Learning, I have attended a lecture each morning with experts including the amazing Dr Claire Lee and Dr Piotr Traczyk; all under the watchful eye of Adam Little and the amazing Jeff Wiener. I cannot praise CERN enough.  I was so pleased because I had the opportunity to go a couple of years ago but it clashed with my daughters 21st birthday so could not attend. I was raised and still live in rural East Yorkshire so have grown up surrounded by nature. I love it and enjoy being amongst it with our dog Blue whenever possible. I love to travel to different places and experience different cultures and surroundings. I spent my childhood picking wild flowers and studying leaves, grasses and petals. However, I had a tricky time at secondary school with science, having requested to study biology but being told to study physics and chemistry. I had a very bad te...

I would really like to congratulate CIEC as the organisation celebrates its 25 th  year! This is a fantastic achievement for Joy Parvin and the CIEC team where ‘ children, teachers and STEM professionals from industry collaborate, under…expert supervision and guidance’ . (CIEC website, 2021) Joy Parvin (Director) and Jane Winter (Professional Development Lead) have an amazing team including Mackayla Millar (advisory teacher) ; they are based at the Chemistry Department at the University of York.  They combine training of industry partners and school staff with resourced problem-solving school activities and interactive site visits to industry .   I met Joy about 18 months ago through Primary Science Quality Mark (PSQM) and although at that point there was not an opportunity for our school to get involved in their Careers Learning, which I had been researching for my Masters in Education (MEd) Research project, she was very helpful and supportive with my research.  Ha...