West Midlands STEM Knowledge Networks Summary

The National STEM Centre in partnership with the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics (NCETM) is keen to encourage teachers in schools and colleges to form STEM Knowledge Networks. These networks or communities of professional learning can be within a single school or college or drawn from several establishments. As a pilot, four STEM Knowledge Networks were funded in the West Midlands region in 2010, in preparation for a more extensive programme throughout the country. The STEM Knowledge Networks had to:

The four West Midlands schools were all secondary schools with an interest in promoting STEM subjects. They each received up to a maximum of £2000 to enable collaboration across at least two STEM departments within the school. The majority of the funds were to be spent on releasing teachers for this collaboration, with a maximum of 20% to be spent on resources.

The schools were provided with a list of proposed titles and focussed areas of engagement. The chosen areas were:

All four reports can be downloaded from the bottom of this page

The application process required the schools to identify particular milestones in the project and outline a detailed budget. Support to the networks was offered by the National STEM Centre and NCETM. The outcome of the network was a comprehensive report detailing how the network had impacted on teacher practice and what lessons had been learnt. The aim of the reports was to allow other schools and colleges to learn from their experiences and form their own STEM Knowledge Networks.

Overall, the experience of the schools was extremely positive and departments learnt a great deal about the curricula in other STEM areas. Some of the main findings across the networks were:

A further sixteen STEM Knowledge Networks have been funded and the outcomes will be shared on the National STEM Centre and NCETM websites.