Students at Holy Family Catholic School, Parafield Gardens are in the perfect space for engineering their educational pathways into jobs of the future.
The school offers a strong STEM education focus, with students in Years 5 and 6 engaging with robotics and technology to expand their understanding of programming and engineering and develop industry-ready skills.
The school also recently established The Design Lab, a purpose-built space where students can engage in STEM studies and share their work with classmates and peers.
“Students have been using a range of new technologies to design and create their own projects,” STEM teacher Elyshia Blackley says.
“We started out with simple designs like force-powered cars and have progressed to more complex builds like driving robots, which students can code to function in different ways. It’s been great to see how much they’ve grown. The goal is to run new programs in the future.”
The enthusiasm for STEM education has spread throughout the school, with both students and teacher sharing their learnings and knowledge with other students and colleagues.
For principal Kerry White, investing in not just technology but staff is reaping rewards.
“Having this technology means students can access the learning they want to pursue when they want to pursue it,” he says.
“It’s about staying relevant. We’re passionate about developing unique teachers.”
With Industry 4.0 flourishing in South Australia, STEM education is also key in driving career pathways.
“I often speak in assembly about space and Mars in particular,” Mr White says.
“There are currently five or six Martian vehicles up there, four of which we are still actively communicating with. I tell students, ‘This is the future for you – we are going to Mars and when we get there someone is going to have to code the vehicles’.
“We want to be forward-thinking – these are the jobs of the future.”
Pictured above: Holy Family Catholic School students Vi, Ekam, Ashvarn, Bianca and Hayden enjoying the school’s dedicated specialist space which has been created to help them engage in STEM projects.
A CESA-funded environmental initiative at St Anthony’s School, Edwardstown is helping young students and older members of their local parish to blossom.
