Paul Tyler, the STEM and Innovation Lead at Kirkhill Primary School, has been reimagining specific aspects of the school's curriculum to focus more on Engineering, Technology, Innovation, and Sustainability. He has set up and resourced a new STEM Innovation hub for the curriculum redesign.
With 14 years of experience leading STEM, Paul has developed meaningful collaborations with relevant organisations. He has run successful science and engineering clubs, was twice awarded STEM Club of the Year in Scotland, and created fully immersive engineering projects for pupils.
Over the past year, Paul has developed an open-ended "Low Resource Engineering Challenges" collection to introduce engineering concepts and encourage collaboration. Through pupil-led design-and-build projects, pupils have learned about various materials and had opportunities to work with different grades of cardboard, wood, plastic, and metal.
Paul has also established a school-wide program of engineer visits throughout the year, building close relationships with local and national engineering companies that continue to support engineering development at the school.
"All of us at Kirkhill are absolutely delighted for Paul winning the David Clarke Prize," said Liz Matthews, head teacher at Kirkhill Primary School. "His STEM work has been inspirational for a significant number of children over many years, and his impact on pupils and staff at Kirkhill has been huge since he joined the school. The curriculum he has developed this year, with engineering and sustainability at the centre, has given the children experiences they would have never got without him, his dedication and enthusiasm. The generous prize money for the school will allow Paul to continue to develop our engineering curriculum over the next three years. He already has plans to create fully immersive opportunities for our children and ensure we have the resources we need to inspire the children further."
Kirkhill Primary School has been developing engineering within STEM as a critical part of its curriculum over the past year, with sustainable engineering as the primary focus. The school plans to continue developing this part of the curriculum over the next three years in the following ways:
The school plans to continue developing this part of the curriculum over the next three years by further developing the STEM Innovation Hub. This includes adding custom-made woodworking benches with stations for up to six children at a time, appropriate shelving to store materials and children's projects, and purchasing a range of woodworking tools to increase children's opportunities for practical work. The school also aims to buy materials for engineering projects, specifically suitable wood and other hardware needed to develop meaningful experiences, and building resources for each stage, such as Kapla, K'Nex, blocks and poles, and magnetic shapes, to improve children's engineering skills and thinking.
In addition, the school plans to develop full-day, immersive engineering experiences for Primary 4, 5, 6, and 7and expand the extracurricular engineering programme to include more options for children at different stages, buying the necessary resources to support these activities. Kirkhill Primary School also intends to share its experiences with other schools across the local authority and interested schools throughout Scotland.
