STEM Seminars at the Goodwood Education Trust

20th July 2023
The Goodwood Education Trust hosted their annual School STEM Seminars as part of the Festival of Speed 2023

  • Goodwood Education Trust

  • STEM

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The Goodwood Education Trust hosted its annual School STEM Seminars as part of the Festival of Speed 2023, offering inspiration, ideas and aspiration for almost 200 secondary school students.

Schools spend half a day at the Seminars, and half a day with free tickets exploring the excitement of the Festival of Speed. As always, the seminars were over-subscribed, with 11 schools attending, mainly from West Sussex. The seminars are held at the Education Trust’s purpose-built and accessible Education Centre, offering an ideal base for the students. Several of the students face life challenges and unique opportunities such as this help to raise aspirations.

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) is broad, with many examples on show at the Festival of Speed, and Product Design forms an important part.

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Dick Powell, award-winning founder of the design agency SeymourPowell, has selected speakers for the Seminars for many years. He says, ‘The seminars are a huge treat for both the local schools and their cohorts of young people, and too for the speakers. The day is a wonderful opportunity to give students an insight into potential careers in the Creative Industries and to hear that working creatively is fun, as well as rewarding.’

This year the line-up of speakers was exceptional. Students heard from two designers from industry - Alex Gort-Barten from British appliance company Dualit, and Lewis Calderwood from stylish housewares business Joseph and Joseph. The sessions featured two inspiring women who are forging their own careers - Jo Barnard from Morrama and Farhana Safa, who switched careers from being an eye surgeon to becoming a car designer. For contrast, there were two speakers from design consultancies - Richard Stevens, who founded ForPeople and has just taken up a role at JLR and Katie-May Boyd, a future forecaster and CMF strategist working at Seymourpowell.

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Alex Gort-Barten, Brand Director at Dualit, offered the students the chance to make and sample hot chocolate. He said, ‘I wanted to get involved to balance the lack of STEM exposure I had as a young person. Making hot chocolate is engineering - it gets people hooked through chocolate’.

One of the teachers from Selsey Academy said, ‘It is so valuable for students to see opportunity right on their doorstep’.

A teacher from UTC, Portsmouth, said, ‘We are so grateful for the amazing opportunity for the students’.

Anne Bartlett, Education Officer at the Education Trust, said, ‘The speakers were generous with their time, offering reflections, and answering questions. The Trust is so pleased to host the seminar each year, and we’re already thinking about 2024’.

  • Goodwood Education Trust

  • STEM