St Catherine’s, Bramley describes its recent car build project and its impact in driving girls’ aspirations for potential STEM-focused careers
St Catherine’s School, Bramley has a strong tradition in science and many notable STEM alumnae – including Stanford professor of engineering Beverley McKeon, University of London neuroscientist Cathy Price and Amazon robotics specialist Abike Looi-Somoye. “Girls are encouraged to believe that they can, with focus and determination, follow a career in any direction that they choose,” says St Catherine’s Senior School Headmistress Alice Phillips. Over 75% of girls here already study sciences or social sciences at A level – but the school is not resting on its laurels.
Since employment in STEM areas is only projected to increase in coming years, this requires approaches to widen interest. “Academic disciplines must collaborate and integrate to enhance our students’ creativity, problem-solving skills, critical thinking, experimentation and resilience,” says Alice Phillips. The question the school set itself was: ‘how do you create a new and exciting project to inspire girls to follow a STEM path at university and beyond?’ .The answer: build a car.
This project was all part of St Catherine’s Sixth Form Design Engineering Programme in the new Art & Maker Space. Girls in Upper and Lower Sixth Forms were invited to join Alastair White, Head of Design & Technology, to take part in the project. While some girls had studied Design Technology at GCSE or were doing so at A level, every Sixth Form girl was offered the chance to take part in the course alongside her A-level studies.
The first car off the St Catherine’s ‘production line’ is a bright yellow Westfield Final Edition. Working under the guidance of Alastair White, and from detailed plans, diagrams and schedules, the team worked collaboratively to problem solve, think creatively and engineer solutions. Girls studying Maths and Physics tackled the project as engineers, while those with a flair for the visual offered a different view of challenges. The team were mindful of the wise words of Henry Ford that: ‘Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success’.
“Our new Westfield kit car build has enthused girls from 4 to 18 – and brought parents together on the racetrack”
We know study choices among female students are changing nationally – computer science applications have more than doubled since 2012, while engineering applications have increased by 70%, according to UCAS. “Even classic jobs like marketing, which have usually been associated with intuition or experience, are fast changing due to the prevalence of Big Data,” says St Catherine’s Head of Physics Dr Kathleen Puech. “I feel very strongly that in a world that is becoming ever more scientific, a firm grounding in these subjects will make our children far better equipped to compete successfully.”
That bright yellow motor has certainly fuelled interest. “Our new Westfield kit car build has enthused girls from 4 to 18 – and brought parents together on the racetrack!” says Alice Phillips. It was especially heartening to have so much interest from Prep and Senior girls, eager to visit the workshop and talk to the project team. “This has been a hugely successful project which has provided a truly immersive learning opportunity for our Sixth Form girls and has had a ripple effect,” she adds. “It is wonderful for the girls to not only have such incredible role models within the school, but also that they are able to look to our alumnae who have made significant contributions in the world of science and engineering.”
St Catherine’s School, Bramley stcatherines.info
Further reading: Berkhamsted on educating for tomorrow
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