What is STEM?
STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths, but also includes subjects such as Design & Technology (D&T) and Computing/ICT.
Why your school or trust should be focusing on STEM
The STEM skills shortage
There aren’t currently enough pupils in schools choosing to pursue STEM careers. In 2021, The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) estimated a shortfall of over 173,000 workers in the STEM sector, with an average of around 10 unfilled roles per business. Making STEM a priority in your school/trust can help support more pupils to pursue a career in STEM.
Diversity in the sector
STEM subjects are hugely important for the future, but the sector isn’t currently very diverse. At current rates of progress, it’ll take 100 years to achieve a gender balance in STEM, and 50 years for the proportion of ethnic minorities to reflect wider society. People with disabilities are also underrepresented in engineering and professional services roles.
As governors or trustees, your role is to make sure these subjects are being promoted in your school/trust, so that pupils from all backgrounds, identities and abilities have the skills and feel empowered to enter into a career in STEM if they wish to.
This data is based on a report by AtkinsRéalis on the barriers to progress in STEM careers. You can read more about their findings here.
Know what the current challenges are
To be able to monitor STEM effectively, it’s important to know what challenges your school/trust is facing. These are examples of the challenges that have been identified across the country, so it’s likely that your school/trust may be facing these too:
Primary:
- Time allocated to STEM in the curriculum
- Time spent doing high-quality practical work
- Access to high-quality CPD for teachers and subject leads
- Time allocated to the subject leads to deliver CPD to others, for example in staff meeting slots
Secondary:
- Recruitment and retention of suitably-skilled teachers of STEM subjects
- An overcrowded curriculum
- Appropriate adaptations for lower attaining pupils
- Developing Early Career Teachers (ECTs)
- Lack of experienced teachers in a department
- Lack of specialist teachers in particular areas (e.g. physics)
- Not having access to the resources needed
- Budget restrictions
- Periods of change (for example, recent changes in the vocational qualification offer)
- Lack of GCSE and A-level uptake for some subjects – for example, there was an 81% decline in young people taking D&T at GCSE and a 61% decline in D&T at A-Level between 2023 and 2024
How to start the conversation
With schools having so many different things to prioritise, it can be difficult to get the focus you need to monitor STEM effectively. You need to get buy-in from your chair and your school or trust leader. This is essential for STEM to become a strategic priority, as your chair and school/trust leader will determine whether you have the resources and capacity to go ahead.
Start off the discussion at a board meeting by raising the issue under 'any other business'. Provide a simple and clear report for your board (at least a week before your meeting) that puts you all on the same page so you can have a free and frank discussion. Be aware that the rest of your board may not share your urgency, as changing mindset takes time and patience.
Use your expertise to provide the board with reasons why STEM should be a priority, focusing on the challenges mentioned above and using your knowledge of your school/trust and the local area to draw out what your board should be focused on. For example, the employability of pupils leaving the school, or improving the school’s STEM offer to make sure those interested in STEM careers are given the opportunities they need to thrive.
Find out about your current STEM provision
In order to monitor effectively, you need to know where your starting point is.
Once your board, chair and school/trust leader agree that STEM should be a strategic priority, the board needs to consider what your provision already looks like, and where the strengths and weaknesses lie. Give your leaders plenty of time to prepare a report for your full board – it could be subject leaders who do this, or the executive leader. The report could cover:
- What’s working well at the moment
- Current challenges
- Attainment data
- Data on what pupils are doing when they leave school – for example, how many pupils are pursuing STEM subjects? What are the demographics of these pupils?
- Provision for pupils eligible for pupil premium or who have special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) – what is the school/trust currently doing to ensure that these pupils are given equal opportunities to thrive?
Ask leaders questions to get the information you need
- What is the current status of STEM education in our school/trust? What priority is it given?
- How has pupil engagement with STEM changed over the past five years and how has this been measured?
- What is the time allocation of STEM in the curriculum?
- How are STEM subjects interconnected?
- Is there a CPD programme in place for staff relating to STEM?
- What opportunities are there for subject leads to share ideas from their professional learning with other staff?
- Are STEM careers and role models built into the curriculum?
- Has the school built any careers links with local STEM organisations?
- Are we facing any recruitment and retention challenges in STEM departments?
- How do you make sure that STEM subjects are accessible for all pupils?
- How do subject leaders for STEM subjects work together to ensure coherence across the curriculum?
- What are the biggest challenges for our school/trust and how can these be tackled?
- How does our attainment data compare with local/national numbers?
- How do certain groups of pupils perform compared to others? For example, girls vs boys, pupil premium-eligible pupils vs others?
Find more questions to ask about STEM in our other article.
Put STEM at the heart of your vision and values
Once you’ve established that STEM is an area of development for your school or trust, get your full board and senior leaders together to discuss:
- How your current vision and values align with your identified priorities:
- STEM may not feature explicitly in your vision statement, but could fall under some of the overarching themes
- Whether you need to update your vision and values to reflect your drive for STEM provision
Examples from schools
Some schools choose to have a separate STEM vision. See some examples below:
Evendons Primary School in Wokingham has a separate STEM vision that includes the intent and impact, along with examples of experiences that pupils can expect during their time at the school.
Ryders Hayes School in Walsall has a STEM vision that includes a pupil-friendly charter setting out key skills that pupils will have.
St James’s Church of England High School in Bolton sets out the skills pupils will gain and the experiences that they’ll have at the school. They also include a video on STEM careers.
Discovery Multi-Academy Trust, a 3 school trust in Plymouth, sets out its goals around STEM on its welcome page.
Turn your vision into a strategy
Once you've agreed on your vision for STEM, collaborate with your school or trust leaders to create a strategy with clear goals that will ultimately achieve that vision.
Make sure STEM is included in the school or trust improvement plan (SIP/TIP). This will help make sure it gets the time and space it needs to make real improvements.
Appoint a STEM link governor
You can also have a STEM link governor on your board to lead conversations in this area. Governors for Schools run a STEM governor programme to help you recruit people with specialist knowledge to your board to take on the role.
Find out more about the role of the STEM link governor.
Raise awareness of STEM in your school
Your board can raise the profile of STEM using governor biographies on your school/trust website. If you have governors who come from STEM backgrounds, celebrate this in their biographies.
Your school or trust could also raise awareness by making sure STEM features in school events such as job fairs. This is something that would be arranged by your senior leadership team, but governors/trustees could attend the event to engage with stakeholders.
Leaders could also make sure that provider access features STEM more heavily, and you could monitor this when reviewing your provider access policy statement.
It’s important to note that although one-off STEM events can spark interest from the community, these can increase staff workload. If your school/trust runs STEM-specific events, ask leaders how they balance events with an ongoing focus on STEM. A sustained programme of activity helps to keep the momentum going and is likely to help you make more progress towards your goals.
Remember to stay strategic
Your headteacher or executive leadership team will break down the strategic goals into further action plans and implement them at your school or across your trust. They should report back to your board on the progress they make.
As a governor/trustee, you shouldn't get involved in implementing the plan, as your role is strategic and you should leave operational matters to leaders. Your job is to monitor your school or trust's progress against the strategy and goals to make sure things are moving in the right direction.
Monitor progress
Decide how your board will monitor STEM
Depending on your board's structure, you might decide to:
- Embed the monitoring of STEM into your board’s existing structures. For example, if you have a curriculum committee it could monitor how STEM subjects are embedded across the school and how each subject interlinks, while the careers link governor could ask what guidance and support are provided for students considering careers in STEM
- Appoint a STEM link governor or trustee to take a leading role in monitoring progress made towards the strategy and goals. This might mean:
- Working with multiple subject leads
- If you are on a local board of an academy, working with governance counterparts at other schools or the trust
Discuss progress towards your goals at board meetings
Ask your governance professional to include progress on STEM as a recurring item in full board meeting agendas. When discussing this item, remember to:
- Refer back to your school or trust's vision and values and ask if you're making sufficient progress towards these
- Regularly revisit your strategy. Ask if the strategy continues to reflect the current situation and whether there have been any barriers to progress. If it’s not working as it should, you may need to work with your leaders to amend your strategy and/or goals
Ask questions about STEM
The governor or committee responsible for STEM (if you have one) can ask questions of your school or trust leaders on school visits or in meetings. Pick and choose the questions that are most appropriate for your context in our questions to ask about STEM article.
As with everything else, remember to not take leaders' answers for granted. You'll need to go into your school to see the progress being made in real life and triangulate what you are hearing.
Share funding streams and free resources with leaders
With budget constraints a huge barrier to school improvement, leaders will want to make the most of any funding or freebies available to them. Remember, it’s not your role to apply for any funding or to dictate what resources leaders choose to use, but you can share the list below, provided by our expert partners, with your school/trust leaders for them to investigate.
Please note that inclusion in this list is not intended as a recommendation from GovernorHub/The Key.
Computing/ICT:
- Free CPD from National Centre for Computing Education
- Offers support and funding for teachers' CPD as well as funding to offer computer science GCSE
- Free CPD and resources from Computing at School
- Teachers and school leaders can access resources, training and community forums
- Free resources, courses and platforms from Raspberry Pi
- The page is updated regularly with information and resources for teachers and school leaders
Engineering:
- Free engineering resources for secondary schools and primary schools from the James Dyson foundation.
- The foundation has also provided bursaries, scholarships and project funding to make the path to a future in engineering easier
Science:
- Outreach fund from the Royal Society of Chemistry
- Provides funding to support chemistry-based school and community engagement activities
General:
- Engage grants to run CREST Awards with underrepresented audiences
- Apply for a grant to support young people underrepresented in STEM to achieve CREST awards
- Free resources and CPD from STEM learning
- Leaders will need to sign up for a free account, but can access a wide range of STEM information, resources and CPD here