OAT Chess Championship

Project Summary

This project involved students across OAT academies undertaking social action projects and competitions relating to STEM. The theme of STEMFest was social action and finding solutions through STEM to problems that affect student’s local communities. Overall, 25 STEM-focused social action projects were submitted, 11 academies took part with over 70 students from years 7-10. 10 student teams took part in the national final on May 10th with a judging panel made up of Science RLPS, OAT enrichment team and STEM industry professionals. Two winners and runners up from Key Stage 3 and 4 were announced with the winning schools receiving winners’ shields, medals and cash prizes. Other successes of the project were 5 industry workshops occurring focused on STEM careers, Lasser200 committing to being the sponsor for the 2021/22 STEMFest project, and a pilot curriculum being launched at Ormiston Bushfield Academy for year 7 and year 8 as a result of the project..

Challenges and Lessons Learnt

The biggest issue for the project was the impact of COViD-19 on schools. Due to restrictions within academies and limited access to enrichment activity during the promotion and delivery of the project, the target of engaging 20 academies in the final competition and reaching 300 young people through the competition was not met.
COVID-19 also impacted academies engagement with the STEM career workshops. Although academies showed interest and signed up for the workshops, none of the workshops were attended by any schools. The sessions were recorded and are now available on the STEMFest website, but this was a very disappointing result for the team behind the project. The STEM team are now assessing the need or requirements of this area of the project and are working on an alternative plan, for STEM engagement with professionals and career focus.
Lessons learned from the project included having one window for submitting the full project rather than first submitting a proposal as this will allow more projects to go to completion and have a greater social impact. Another lesson is more time and effort on tracking, monitoring and evaluation throughout project delivery with staff and students and keeping accurate records of developments throughout the project.

Beneficiary Feedback

Student feedback quotes- suggested fun activities to do in STEM:
“Science experiments that involve making others aware of climate change and how to reduce pollution.”
“Building STEM robots”
“Create things that use STEM.”

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OAT Chess Championship

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James is the Chief Executive officer of Ormiston Trust. He has worked as an organisation advisor in the private, public and voluntary sectors, helping organisations to grow sustainably over the medium to long term. He has helped charities for over 20 years in the fields of strategic development, partnership setup, programme and project delivery.

Poppy is the Youth Engagement and Partnership Officer at Ormiston Trust, responsible for coordinating our team of Young Advisors and developing effective working relationships with external organisations. She is currently studying ‘Politics, International Studies and Global Sustainable Development’ at Warwick University and previously worked as Board Advisor for a non-profit youth-focused organisation in Croydon. She has experience in activism work – attending COP26 with environmental education company Force of Nature and had been a member of the UK Youth Parliament for many years, speaking on environmental issues in the House of Commons for its ‘Make Your Mark’ campaign.

Tom heads up Comms and Youth Engagement here at Ormiston Trust. His role focuses mainly on helping run the Youth Advisory Council, as well as heading up our social media accounts and planning events. His creative roots lie in journalism, music and theatre as well as horticulture and creative producing, having been involved in a variety of workshops and projects. Tom is passionate about the environment and politics and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Birmingham in International Relations.

Fiona is the Grants Assistant at Ormiston Trust and in her role she supports the Grants team. Previously, she worked in the City for 10 years, firstly as a dealer on the floor of the London Stock Exchange and then as an equity salestrader.

Samia is a business and ICT Teacher with over 20 years of leadership experience in Education, working with leaders from Key Stage 1 to Key Stage 5. Her experience has ranged from working as an Acting Head Teacher to a Deputy for an Education Trust. Some of the key highlights from her education career have included building schools and setting up education provisions, including a teaching school, and winning several National awards. Samia is passionate about ensuring the young people in her care have the best possible experience and has always led by example by sending her own children to the schools she has been a part of.

Ray leads the youth engagement, partnerships and fundraising work streams at Ormiston Trust, in particular having strategic oversight of how we as an organisation can embed the voices of our young people in everything we do, and how we can work with partner organisations to maximise shared outcomes and opportunities.

His background is in community project development and funding, having worked with charities, schools, and local authorities in East Anglia to develop a plethora of projects including primary-secondary school transition, award-winning youth amateur theatre, social prescribing in rural GP practices, and youth commissioning boards, for which he was recognised as a Prime Minister’s Point of Light.

Ray is a global health and medicine graduate, alongside his work at Ormiston, he is a hospital doctor and public health academic. He is also an #iWill Ambassador and national #iWill Partnership Board member.

Anne is Finance Manager at Ormiston Trust and has worked for Ormiston Trust for over 30 years, overseeing the property portfolio and asset management. She combines her work at the Trust with voluntary community work and has raised thousands of pounds to enhance leisure and education opportunities for young people in disadvantaged communities.

Karlene is Finance Manager at Ormiston Trust and has been handling the Financial Management of Ormiston Trust since 2014. Her background is in Financial Services with 20 years working in the industry and she has a passion for systems, processes and spreadsheets to enable good finance management.

Aneela is the Head of Education at Ormiston Trust. Prior to joining Ormiston Trust, she was Head of Professional Development and School Improvement at Beaconhouse Group, overseeing the professional development of over 8000 teachers and implementing systems for school improvement across 200 international schools, in the Southeast region. Prior to this, she worked at Universities in the UAE, where she taught on the Bachelor of Education and Diploma programmes, and previous to this she was a Lead Advisor for Nord Anglia Education services, working with head teachers and principals to raise educational standards across schools in Abu Dhabi.

Melissa is a Programme Management Officer at Ormiston Trust. In her role she supports the #WeWill programme management, and works closely with the monitoring & evaluation, social action toolkit & skills, and youth engagement teams. She completed her undergraduate degree in International Development at the University of Sussex, and her postgraduate degree in Global Health and Development at UCL. Over the last eight years, she has dedicated much of her time to working with non-profit organisations in the UK, Nigeria, China, and Tanzania.

OAT Chess Championship

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Project Summary

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Case Studies

OAT Chess Championship

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OAT STEMFest

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OAT Matholympics

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Get Involved

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