Upper School class had a visit from Mhairi, STEM ambassador from the Ogden Trust, who ran two workshops. The one in the morning reinforced our current learning about electricity with practical activities involving making series circuits using circuit diagrams, testing voltage and to extend the children’s knowledge even further, how to make a parallel circuit. 
The children really got stuck in with the challenges showing excellent understanding and increasing vocabulary. Mhairi’s expertise made for a fantastic session. 
In the afternoon, Mhairi taught us all about renewable energy and gave the class the challenge of making working solar powered cars! Firstly, the children carefully followed instructions to get the solar panels working and secondly used a huge box of LEGO to design a car body for the panels to go on. Two groups were so successful they were able to set their cars going under the lamps that Mhairi had brought in. 
I would like to say a heartfelt thank you to Mhairi for giving up her time to teach us all (myself included) today. We really appreciated and enjoyed the opportunity to learn and extend our knowledge through the use of well resourced activities. Small schools need experts like you! 
Jo Hurley


STEM Challenges 2025