A massive thank you to everyone who has joined STEM Community since its launch three years ago – you've all played a huge part in it being recognised as ‘Community of the Year’ in Higher Logic's Super Forum 2024 Customer Awards!
STEM Community was set up to be a safe, professional space for teachers, TA's and technicians of STEM subjects to share ideas and best practice, resources and support each other with everything from wellbeing tips to pedagogy – ultimately improving lives through STEM education.
Over the last three years, it’s grown rapidly and now features more than 25,000 members and many groups buzzing with discussions, collaboration, key questions answered and more – and it’s remained completely free to join.
The groups range from stages (Primary STEM, Teaching 11-19 Science) to subjects specific, such as the sciences and computing, and has also featured hundreds of exclusive blogs written for teachers by teachers – ensuring no teacher feels isolated on their career journey.
As STEM Community has developed, more features essential for teachers and technicians have been introduced such as Featured Resources, which is designed to reflect the rhythms of the school year and provide classroom ideas tied into key awareness events. We’ve also run engaging competitions including the Chemistree competition at Christmas with dozens of entries featuring STEM-related Christmas trees – ensuring engagement during the school holidays.
Also, the Marketplace lists a wealth of CPD from various providers for members to take advantage of, the STEM Insights Podcast now has two series’ worth of fascinating episodes and STEM Learning Bites provides a weekly CPD video sharing insight for teachers to bring into classrooms.
STEM Community’s success in helping STEM educators with their practice every single day has now been recognised with this Award - which also covers the STEM Ambassador Community which launched in June 2022, and now has more than 14,000 members. This was set up on a similar basis to the educator Community – with volunteer STEM Ambassadors sharing best practice, accessing training and support and sharing their experiences of inspiring young people in classrooms.
Community Manager Tim Bradbury, who’s a former assistant headteacher, said: “We were absolutely delighted to receive this Award, which is for every single person who has engaged with STEM Community since its inception.
“We know that teaching can be a lonely profession, so STEM Community is a really vital tool for all educators. We recently launched our ‘STEM Community – your SOS helpline’ campaign on social media which exemplifies this, providing testimonies from members who have been helped on their career journey.
“We are proud to operate a ‘you said, we did’ approach with regular member surveys and questionnaires to ensure that we’re providing the best possible experience for members, and we act on feedback.
“The STEM Community also serves as a crucial tool for the STEM Learning Education and Programmes teams to directly engage with core customers, undertake social listening for insights on education trends, CPD course ideas, and resource requests, and gather light-touch feedback through polls. This interaction allows for a deeper understanding of user needs and preferences.
“A massive thank you to every single one of our members – and we don’t stand still, keep an eye out for more new features and initiatives over the coming weeks and months!”
We’re now offering exciting sponsorship opportunities for organisations to reach these thousands of Community members. View our Media Kit and check out our Content Calendar for ideas on how you can contribute content for our thousands of members!