Teachers recognised for outstanding STEM provision

Lucy Hart from Caroline Haslett Primary School in Milton Keynes and Tracey Ellicott of East Wemyss Primary School and Nursery in Fife were joint winners in the primary school category. Dewi Thomas of YGG Bro Edern in Cardiff, and Clare Doherty from St. Mary’s College, Derry, were both awarded the secondary school prize. 

Their schools receive £12,000 over three years to support their STEM engagement projects, and the teachers, who typically run all these STEM activities pro bono and in their own time, receive an individual award.

It is the first year that the Clark Prize has been jointly awarded to two teachers per category of school, and the first time that schools in all four devolved countries of the United Kingdom are represented.

Every year the unique prize, organised by the ERA Foundation and named after former foundation Executive Secretary, the late Dr David Clark, rewards the contributions of teachers working in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) engagement, who do exemplary work to link school children with engineering experiences and activities. David Clark sadly passed away in September and was a devoted servant of ERA Foundation, and Warwick Manufacturing Group.

Tracey Ellicott has been the STEM lead at East Wemyss Primary School since 2014. 

She set up a STEM-based collaborative learning environment for pupils to experience working with materials, “Tinkertots” sessions that offer STEM activities to pre-school children with their parents and has delivered a programme of family STEM workshops. In 2018 the school won the Rolls-Royce Science Prize and used the prize money to invest in resources to support the school’s mission, including a 3D printer, Lego robotics kits (Mindstorms, Education and Spike), 22 iPads and K’Nex engineering sets.

“I have been working co-operatively with teachers to build their confidence and develop their STEM capital, while training classes to use the space safely and productively,” says Tracey. “I delivered a further series of STEM Family Workshops across early, middle and upper stages to whet the children’s appetite for STEM-related activities and learning. During British Science Week in March, our Primary 7 and Primary 2 classes led a whole-school STEM event, for which the older children achieved their Young STEM Leader Level 3 Award.” 

Tracey is a Primary Science Cluster Champion with SSERC, the STEM resource provider in Scotland.

Lucy Hart of Caroline Haslett Primary School has established two after school clubs that use “Educademy” resources to vivify STEM learning. Lucy champions diversity in STEM, and her work led to the school being recognised as an iBelong Champion in December 2024, a scheme to encourage girls to study computer science.

Last year she entered Key Stage 2 learners at her school into the Bebras Challenge, a global competition focused on computational thinking. The children achieved 17% above the national average in computational thinking. At this year’s British Computer Society BBN Prize Award, Lucy took a team of learners to Cranfield University to compete in a national competition, where the Year 6 girls secured first place for their innovative Online Safety Coding project, showcasing their coding ability.

Lucy has also encouraged children to enter the Primary Engineer competition, ‘If You Were an Engineer, What Would You Do?’. 

Stellar secondary schoolteachers

Dewi Thomas founded Engineering and Technology as a subject at Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg (YGG) Bro Edern, Cardiff, in 2012 and now leads a dynamic and inclusive STEM culture that is helping students in a socio-economically deprived area. Dewi’s roll call of achievements and awards is remarkable, where his students have achieved national and international recognition in several prestigious UK STEM competitions, including winning the Big Bang UK Young Engineer of the Year, the Engineering Education Scheme Wales Sixth Form Pupil of the Year, and consecutive UK and World Finalist positions in the F1 in Schools competition. 

Bro Edern students have also earned multiple Arkwright Scholarships, IPO Prizes (including patent filings), and numerous placements in the TDI Challenge, Teen Tech Awards, and WJEC (Welsh Joint Education Committee) Innovation Awards, nine of which were won in the past three years. Dewi’s department runs an extracurricular programme that includes LEGO League, CyberFirst Girls, and STEM Racing.

A spokesperson for the school said: “As a WJEC Engineering Design A-Level team leader and moderator, and a contributor to the Made-for-Wales Engineering Design Qualification, [Dewi] has helped raise standards and share best practices across Wales. His….  mentorship has guided students to top universities including Imperial College London, UCL, and Loughborough, as well as apprenticeships with elite organisations including Williams F1 Academy.”

Clare Doherty from St. Mary’s College, Derry has introduced two highly successful Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance (CEIAG) events to promote STEM, entrepreneurship and innovation to pupils of all ages. Her award-winning annual Engineers Week event attracts more than 1,000 students from local secondary and primary schools. 

Presenting the awards, Dame Helen Atkinson DBE FREng, said the award committee were pleased that Clare’s work was influencing people far beyond her own school. “Clare’s leadership in Technology, Design & Engineering is now regarded as the blueprint for all similar departments within Foyle Learning Community, a group of 13 post-primary schools in Northern Ireland – and as a centre of excellence for student examination achievement throughout Northern Ireland.” 

Clare is also responsible for initiating the first TeachMeetTD in Ireland, where STEM teachers come together to share good practice in a supportive environment. She runs an annual Entrepreneurship Week, that is affiliated to Global Entrepreneurship Week UK.  Since 2012 students have seen presentations by over 60 entrepreneurs, including panellists on RTE Dragons Den.

“The winning teachers of this year’s Clark Prize are outstanding; it is quite overwhelming to see the amount of work they devote to connecting engineering and manufacturing with school pupils,” says Andrew Everett, executive secretary of ERA Foundation. “Their biographies speak for themselves. The Clark Prize will continue to identify and reward hard-working STEM teachers and schools, and we know there are many more out there.”

Sixteen teachers in total have received the Clark Prize since 2016.

www.erafoundation.org