‘The best school trip ever’ was the verdict given by one student to an employer, as streams of enthusiastic and highly engaged young people made their way across the beautiful University of Roehampton Campus to explore a wide range of emerging tech and applied science. Inspired support from both the University, our sponsor AWS and over 150 volunteers from 22 different organisations, ensured it was a ‘life-changing’ experience for many of the students who participated. We are also grateful to the family and friends of Kieron Johnson who have made donations to TeenTech’s work this year.
The TeenTech Roehampton Festival was enjoyed by over 510 students. With a pre-event live virtual day to spark creativity , followed by full-day experiences for streams of both younger (KS2/3) and older (KS4) age groups, the whole experience was highly rated by teachers and employers as well as students.
I thought the event was absolutely brilliant. What a great day! An amazing opportunity for children to share their creativity to professionals and to experience demonstrations of some cutting-edge tech. I was so proud of all the children who explained their ideas to the judges! And I was also so impressed by the ‘ideas’ focused nature of the event; it showed that we don’t need to involve a whole load of bureaucracy and written outcomes to get children to share their ideas and creativity.
Teacher, Canary Wharf College, East Ferry
Schools travelled from across Greater London to take advantage of a day ‘that does so much more than we can provide in school’. All schools will now have the opportunity to enrol students for both the TeenTech Awards and year round Innovation Days.
An impressive 100% of companies and schools said they would ‘definitely’ attend another TeenTech event and 100% teachers said the festival was extremely or very useful to students in developing an understanding of the breadth of careers in STEM. 80% teachers said they increased their own understanding of careers in STEM as a result of the day.
We are incredibly grateful to all the companies and university departments who put so much effort into building such an engaging and powerful experience.
Departments from The University of Roehampton who ran activities included The School of Arts and Digital Industries, Faculty of Business and Law, School of Education and The Roehampton Esports Arena. Ruth Seabrook provided 23 students to act as ‘table ambassadors’ and there were additional ambassadors from AWS, Network Rail and Microsoft.
TeenTech’s Dallas Campbell ran an exciting session on space with great support from Phil Cooper (Global Lead for AWS Cloud Aerospace and Satellites) and an experiment that made students (and us) jump out of their seats.
Insight and Challenge Zone activities were provided by: Arup, Atkins, AWS, British Army, Esports Arena, Metropolitan Police Cyber Unit, Network Rail, NHS Estates and Facilities, Guy’s and St Thomas’s NHS Trust, NHS England, National Physical Laboratory, Simply Business, Softwire, Queen Mary’s College University of London, University of Roehampton, Willmott Dixon.
View some lovely photos from the day here.
