Forth Valley College
Excellent practice: STEM assured status
Forth Valley College is the first college in Scotland to receive STEM Assured status.
This prestigious award, conferred by the New Engineering Foundation (NEF)
recognises excellence in the college’s Science, Technology, Engineering and
Mathematics (STEM) provision. NEF focuses on improving vocational education
through research, professional development, partnership and organisational
transformation. NEF set rigorous criteria which assess an organisations
performance in six key areas including strategy and planning, engagement, design
and delivery, innovation, standards and impact. An independent validation
confirmed that Forth Valley College was performing well with a strong focus on
industry relevance and was successfully embedding STEM skills across a range of
learning areas.
STEM Assured status publicly-endorses Forth Valley College programmes and
confirms that they have been benchmarked against those delivered by the best
colleges within the UK. It secures a £10,000 Talking Science grant from Scottish
Government to promote and deliver science awareness programmes to local
communities including school-aged learners. In response the college has developed
and delivered an after-school programme to P7 to S2 children from local schools.
Topics studied include; robotics, forensics and applied mathematics. A key focus is
to ensure that subject relevance is made interesting to engage and enthuse younger
pupils in science-related activities. For example, in one session learners devised,
constructed and launched rockets in an adjacent field. In another session learners
had to throw an egg off a tall building and stop it from breaking. Being part of the
NEF network supports college staff to attend NEF Masterclasses run by companies
such as British Nuclear Fuels and Oracle. Staff also benefit through the NEF
fellowship placement programme. Two members of staff attended a placement at
Roslin Cells to look at stem cell research. They benefited through use of the
company’s Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) guide which demonstrates best practice
in laboratory techniques. These approaches have been adopted by staff when
working in college laboratories with learners. As a result of the STEM initiative the
college has implemented cross-curricular practices in a variety of ways including
chemistry and process staff working with engineering staff on learning approaches
related to hydrocarbons. The awarding of STEM Assured status supports effectively
Forth Valley College’s ambition to promote STEM topics and themes to learners and
the community is serves more widely.
Education Scotland
Foghlam Alba