The STEM Workshop has recently taken up residence within the e-Innovation centre as the business begins to expand and celebrate its business growth. The company celebrated its ‘5th birthday’ this week which was quite a milestone for its founder Leanne Mee who founded the company in 2017. Leanne is an experienced leader and teacher who has worked in education for over 20 years. Leanne founded The STEM Workshop as a result of the decline of the delivery of Design and Technology and Engineering in schools, she wanted to support more schools and educators in having a wider impact across both Shropshire and the Midlands.

Leanne was invited to a prestigious parliamentary reception last week at the House of Commons in Westminster to be part of the launch of #EngineeringKidsFutures which is a new campaign and report written by The Institute of Engineering and Technology. The report presents some stark facts about the Engineering economy and the state of Engineering education in schools.

What Leanne does at The STEM Workshop already addresses many of these recommendations that have been presented to government, one of which is that Engineering should be taught from primary age and upwards in schools. At The STEM Workshop Engineering and Design and Technology are at the heart of each workshop where children are not only immersed in learning about D&T and Engineering but they are also connected to a career across Engineering to support in raising those aspirations from an early age and breaking down any barriers. The workshops are designed to align to the D&T curriculum but also provide opportunities for children to apply their knowledge from Maths and Science allowing them to contextualise their learning. Teachers are provided with plans and resources following the workshops to allow the learning to embedded and sustained.

See below extracts from a recent workshop where Leanne was working with a group of Year 3 pupils at John Randall Primary in Telford, connecting their learning to mechanical engineering, the pupils were designing and making working models of the great glass elevator.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12jqJLIER9yPCL19EbIBwhVqwxV9jJHrA/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Gcd93M3J9VbE_uJx_O56Knwww8w5laYP/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZQOILXuaKWeMshqeLE6M_9T9B9T24g55/view?usp=sharing

Since The STEM Workshop founded in 2017 Leanne and her growing team have engaged with over 50,000 young people running workshops both at primary and secondary level, including numerous teacher training workshops and community events. They have a growing number of clients that they work for including The University of Wolverhampton, supporting many community events such as Sci Fest and community days. The Design and Technology Association, In-Comm Training a local apprenticeship training provider running a number of initiatives as part of their community engagement offering, Shropshire Council, Severn Teaching Alliance, Wolverhampton Council. University Centre Shrewsbury, MAKE uk an apprenticeship training centre in Birmingham, Recently gaining a contract with The Royal Academy of Engineering running a funded project for them across 20 schools in the midlands and many more including working with schools direct.

Leanne gained recognition for her work last year, through winning the prestigious Excellence Awards run by The Design and Technology Association for Development of STEM Learning Opportunities which she received at the Savoy Place in London. This year Leanne then became sponsor for the Outstanding pupil award aged 6 – 11years and had the privilege of awarding this award to an extremely talented young man. Leanne is keen to give back to allow for growth within the subject.

To find out more about what we offer at The STEM Workshop explore the website https://thestemworkshop.co.uk or you can follow them on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.