Secondary Award Winners

Over £375,000 donated to Hertfordshire Secondary Schools since January 2018
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Secondary Minor Awards: Spring 2024 (Details)

Here's a quick summary of what secondary schools in Hertfordshire have successfully bid for so far in the spring term of 2024.   Each academic year, schools can bid for up to £1000 in each of our focus areas (PE, STEM and Learning to Learn) subject to our termly budget (the current balance is displayed on the applications page).  Applications have to pass our criteria which you can find here.

We wish all the award recipients good luck with their amazing projects and we are very pleased to have helped them "achieve a lot with a little".

School Location Focus Project
Presdales Ware PE A freestanding junior goal package to help lower school students improve their accuracy and goal keeping skills as interest and participation in football continues to grow at the school.
Roundwood Park Harpenden L2L A one-year subscription to Educake learning platform for all students in KS3 and KS4  as well as after school clubs.  The package will enable the setting of high-quality home learning tasks and individually targetted revision and also be used integrate with class learning using the pupils' Google Chromebooks.  If proven to be effective, the subscription would be funded by the science budget and a small parental contribution in subsequent years.
Parmiter's Watford PE A half power rack for the gym to allow students to undertake squats and bench presses.  As well as being used in core PE, the equipment would greatly benefit the school's athlete development program led by an external strength and conditioning coach and help expand provision for their current 8 weekly clubs which are all at full capacity.
Bushey Meads Bushey STEM 3x quadcopter drones and accessories to help students grasp the fundamentals of Python by seeing their programs played out in exciting real-world equipment.  The use of programmable drones will also help develop problem-solving and teamwork skills and not only benefit the school's own STEM club students but also those in the trusts two primary schools and so facilitate smooth progression between the two stages.
Croxley Danes Rickmansworth STEM A bacterial transformation kit, 3x potometer, 5x microscopes and 6x syringe holders to add to existing equipment due to this new school more than doubling its Y12 A level science students and begining their first year of Y13 sciences.   The access to equipment is vital for coursework and bringing the subjects to life as well as introducing new topics such as genetic engineering in a practical way.
John Warner Hoddesdon PE 15x sprint hurdles to enable hurdling to be taught across the whole school with the additional benefits of improving bone strength, flexibility,  balance and coordination.  The hurdles can also be used by feeder schools in their taster sessions, local primaries in district athletics competitions and during summer school activities.
Westfield Academy Watford PE Kit and equipment for football and netball including girls kit to promote inclusivity and gender equality.  The new kit and bibs will enhance motivation, effort and team spirit and enable more teams to practice and play simultaneously.
Chancellor's Hatfield PE 16x hurdles,  8 javelins and tape measures to allow more students to access hurdling and javelin training and competitions and encourage more participation in after-school clubs.  Year 6 induction classes and outside clubs will also benefit from the new equipment.
Kings Langley Hemel Hempstead PE A selection of football equipment including target goals, balls, gloves and shin pads exclusively for girls football to enable the expansion of this activity both in the curriculum and in clubs and competition.  The exclusive kit will also engender a sense of importance and pride amongst girl players and capitalise on student-voice research showing rapidly growing enthusiasm for girls' football.

Secondary Award Winners for 2023/24 (Reference)

This table is primarily to check if your school has already been awarded any of the 3 awards for this academic year.

Click on the "Y"s for more details on the awards granted to each school

 

School PE STEM L2L   School PE STEM L2L
Knightsfield Y Y     Onslow St. Audrey's Y    
Monks Walk Y       Roundwood Park   Y Y
Dacorum ESC Y       Barnwell     Y
Presdales Y Y     Hemel Hempstead   Y  
Hockerill   Y     Katherine Warrington Y    
Parmiter's Y       Bushey Meads   Y  
Croxley Danes   Y     John Warner Y    
Westfield Academy Y       Chancellor's Y    
Kings Langley Y              

Secondary Award Winners - Autumn Term 2023 (Details)

Here's a quick summary of what secondary schools in Hertfordshire have successfully bid for so far in the autumn term of 2023.   Each academic year, schools can bid for up to £1000 in each of our focus areas (PE, STEM and Learning to Learn) subject to our termly budget (the current balance is displayed on the applications page).  Applications have to pass our criteria which you can find here.

We wish all the award recipients good luck with their amazing projects and we are very pleased to have helped them "achieve a lot with a little".

School Location Focus Project
Monks Walk Welwyn Garden City PE An orienteering permanent course, survey/mapping of the school site and lesson plans and resources to widen the PE offering and build leadership, teamwork and communication skills.  Nearby primary and secondary schools will also be given access to the facility.
Onslow St. Audrey's Hatfield PE 2x indoor table tennis tables and 6x bat and ball sets to expand their popular table tennis provision and give more access to KS3, GCSE and A level students.  The tables will also help their regular district teams to have more table-time.
Knightsfield Welwyn Garden City STEM 2x Microbit v2 Starter Kits and a Crumble class kit bring coding and control lessons to life.  The equipment will help foster design and evaluation skills with reference to the intended final users and help children become familiar with integrating a range of electrical components with computer programming.
Roundwood Park Harpenden STEM 2x DNA Electrophoresis classroom sets to enable A level biology students to carry out practical work in this integral part of the specification instead of having to solely rely on videos and text books.  The 30+ students in KS3 science club will also have access to the equipment to help boost their knowledge, understanding and enthusiasm for the process.
Dacorum ESC Hemel Hempstead PE 20x small-group boxing sessions at a local boxing gym to re-engage their vulnerable young people with sport and build their self-confidence.  3 staff will also be trained in the safe and effective use of pads by an England boxing coach and will be able to continue lessons at school with existing equipment.
Knightsfield Welwyn Garden City PE A high-spec Peloton gym bike to add to the range of activities in their gym for their pupils with a range of disabilities.  This robust bike can record their progress and will hopefully encourage a healthy lifestyle, especially for their Y9-11 girls who often are reluctant to attend extra-curricular sports.
Barnwell Stevenage L2L 2x sets of EPQ toolkit books to support the introduction of the L2 EPQ to Y8-10 as part of their super-curriculum.   Worth half a GCSE, the EPQ (Extended Project Qualification) teaching will be delivered in the mornings before school and will develop vital study skills such as decision making, problem solving, planning, research, analysis, evaluation, creativity and many more.
Presdales Ware STEM 15X wireless pH sensor probes for A-Level Chemistry and Biology as they are a key piece of equipment for the curriculum to provide accurate and full experiment results data direct to devices.  The probes and/or data sets produced will also be used in Presdales' popular science clubs and cross-curricularly in maths and food technology. 
Hemel Hempstead Hemel Heampstead STEM A LEGO Spike Prime robot learning day for c150 pupils to code with Python and build artefacts which are driven by the code.  The skills learned and experience will help and inspire students with relevant NEAs and apply for the Arkwright Scholarship and activities, build guides and lesson plans are provided for follow-up work.
Hockerill Bishops Stortford STEM A Turing Tumble Educator Station Bundle and a Spintronic Act One Bundle to build mechanical computers and circuits to help pupils understand how they work and develop their logic skills in a fun, memorable and intuitive way whilst also building fine motor skills and teamwork.
Katherine Warrington Harpenden PE A range of alternative sports equipment such as Boccia, soft archery and sitting volleyball sets and a parachute games pack to extend PE provision to students that have difficulties accessing the main curriculum.  The various activities develop key skills and fine/gross motor skills in a fun way and will be used in a motivating carousel of activities to allow many students to participate.

2023 £10,000 Major Award Winners

Overall

Once again, we had a good selection of bids this year, with PE and STEM applications proving popular but the new Learning to Learn category just pipping them to the post for most applications.

As we do every year, we reviewed our judging process beginning with a mark scheme (based on our standard criteria) which then informs our final discussions.  We don’t publish the actual mark scheme to avoid bids being written “to the scheme” rather than giving a realistic assessment of the project and its benefits.  However, there continues to be a strong emphasis on applicants explaining and evidencing the expected benefits of their projects which we add to our own judgements on how each project will enhance learning and motivation.

We also thought we would help future applicants with our top hints from this year’s bids:

 

Top 3 Feedback Points from the 2023 Major Award Applications

 (“Project” refers to whatever products, training, workshops etc you are applying for)

  1. We make a judgement ourselves on the learning benefits of projects but we are not experts in all subjects so it is up to the applicant to explain how the project will bestow the learning benefits.
  2. Credit will be given if applicants address how their project will meet specified pupil needs and say how they have identified these needs.
  3. Extra credit is given if the applicant evidences any stated benefits – this might be from e.g. research findings or school experience of similar/related initiatives. Any research, including provider/supplier claims, should be explained and applied to the particular needs of the applicant’s school and not just pasted into the application.

 

And now, on to the winners…

 

Stem Major Award Winner 2023:  ST. MARY’S CATHOLIC SCHOOL (Bishops Stortford)

Greenpower F24 Electric Car chassis and a wide range of associated tools/machinery

 This application had many strengths with one of the strongest being the “awe and wonder” of designing and constructing their own electric vehicle and building on current engineering competitions to raise the subject’s profile and popularity even further.  On top of this was the huge range of STEAM skills that the project will develop including graphics, design, engineering, performance testing and data analysis.

Issues of longevity (what happens when the car has been built?) and numbers benefitting (how many pupils can actually be involved with the construction etc?) were addressed well by the application as the long-term usefulness of the high-quality, precision equipment beyond the car construction was explained as well as the cross-curricular opportunities of the project.

 

 


Learning To Learn Major Award Winner 2023:  WATFORD GRAMMAR SCHOOL FOR GIRLS

Two Years’ CPD provided by Thinking Matters plus 15x Visualisers

Thinking Matters are one of a number of learning to learn providers that schools have been integrating into their minor and major award applications to us.  A particular strength of Thinking Matters’ core program from our point of view is the embedded nature of their core program involving setting up a Drive Team to lead the integration of their learning strategies across the whole school over an extended period of time and spaced-out training days for staff with time to apply the methods learned in between.

One of the many strengths of this application was extensive research on the effectiveness of some techniques already being trialled in school to identify areas of weakness and argue for the likely success of this program.  The enthusiasm and commitment of staff and the existence of a learning team also helped us make our choice. 

Our new L2L criteria (changed from Effective Learning in January 2023) does not allow equipment to facilitate more effective learning to be a major part of applications (Major or Minor Awards).  However, it was well argued that the fifteen visualisers (under 25% of the bid) were an integral part of delivering the learning skills to pupils and so they enhanced the application.

 


PE Major Award Winner 2023:  PRESDALES SCHOOL

A range of strength and conditioning equipment for their fitness suite

 We often have a number of bids for fitness suite equipment and some major influences on our choice of winner are how well the school has identified the need for the equipment by different pupil groups and how well they have researched, argued for and evidenced the specific benefits the items will bestow.   Presdales’ bids are always well constructed and this one covered these points very well as well as explaining the wider benefits of enhancing their fitness suite such as motivating reluctant PE learners and generating income from lettings.

Another of the strengths of this project was the plan to train sixth-formers in the safe and effective use of the equipment and then utilise them as leaders in the suite, thus building their leadership and coaching skills.

 

Secondary Minor Awards - Summer 2023 (Details)

Here's a quick summary of what secondary schools in Hertfordshire have successfully bid for so far in the spring term of 2023.   Each academic year, schools can bid for up to £1000 in each of our focus areas (PE, STEM and Learning to Learn) subject to our termly budget (the balance is displayed on the applications page).  Applications have to pass our criteria which you can find here.

We wish all the award recipients good luck with their amazing projects and we are very pleased to have helped them "achieve a lot with a little".

School Location Focus Project
Chancellor's Hatfield STEM 16x ammeters and voltmeters and other electricity apparatus to enable students to work in pairs on practical experiments for more hands-on experience e.g. with circuits/resistance investigations fromY8 to Y13 and to better prepare students for the practical elements of examinations.
The Reach Free Rickmansworth L2L Elevate Education Year 10 ACE Your Exams workshops for all of Y10 and access to their online portal for planning and revision resources.   The strategies taught include highest value revision tasks, finding/fixing mistakes, time allocation and managing stress in exams.
John Warner Hoddesdon PE A triple jump and a high jump mat and speed-bounce wedges for sports hall athletics to greatly expand access to indoor athletics, particularly during the autumn and spring terms, both in curriculum time and clubs and summer school activities.
Knightsfield Welwyn Garden City STEM 2x wireless, mechanical arm visualisers to enable students to see the build up and explanation of model answers as they are formed, observe precise detail of demonstrations, tools and manipulatives and enable the teachers to support and extend learning with visuals and diagrams that can be annotated in real time and in response to student’s needs.  This will be particularly effective as their pupils' deafness sometimes means they rely on visual support.
Chancellor's Hatfield PE A wide variety of cricket equipment to resource their relaunch of cricket across all key stages with increased amounts and better quality equipment which will facilitate enhanced performance and enthusiasm.
Parmiter's Watford PE Outside experts to deliver a variety of workshops including dance, wheelchair basketball, badminton and fitness.  This will form part of a National School Sports Week program of events and competitions to engage students in alternative sports activities which will include teachers and raise the profile and appreciation of the value of sport across the school community.
Herts and Essex Bishop's Stortford STEM Architecture day-long workshop for all Y8 students to build skills,  highlight related careers and inform option choices.   Skills developed will include: Design technology, Fine & Gross Motor Skills, Imagination, Listening Skills, Maths, Problem solving, Science skills and Teamwork & Cooperation.
Parmiter's Watford STEM A one-off purchase of digital copies of the Collins KS3 textbook, teacher book and teaching resources which can be used for around 450 students each and every year.  This will support student revision and help teachers, especially those teaching outside of their specialism, to deliver a robust and consistent curriculum. 
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