Cambridgeshire Educational Partnership brings Innovation Day to King’s Ely

King’s Ely was delighted to welcome students from St Bede's Inter-Church School and Littleport and East Cambridgeshire Academy along to a special Innovation Day.

The event involved more than 60 Key Stage 3 students from all three schools, who enjoyed an engaging and entertaining workshop where they competed to produce ideas for a new Smart Home product. They presented their final creations to a panel of judges made up of Principal of King’s Ely, Sue Freestone; Andrew Moss, who is a King’s Ely parent and Managing Director of Horizon Retail Marketing Solutions; and Alastair Ray, Head of Year 7 and Design and Technology Co-ordinator at King’s Ely Junior.

The Innovation Day was delivered by Lucy Etchegoyen and Veera Bukshi, both Technology Consultants at global firm, Accenture UK. Lucy and Veera chose to take a volunteering day to take the students through a number of design thinking activities. Andrew co-facilitated the day, educating the students on Smart Home devices and how to design a brand and packaging to advertise their products.

The event was organised under the umbrella of the Cambridgeshire Educational Partnership, of which King’s Ely, St Bede’s and Littleport and East Cambs Academy are all members.

Celia Etchegoyen, Director of Outreach at King’s Ely, said: “The students were introduced to Smart Home products, design thinking, ideation, design packaging, marketing strategies and collaborative working. It was fantastic to see the students respond so well to a technology challenge of the future. Lucy, Veera and Andrew together delivered an inspiring and innovative day to raise the aspirations of young people in East Cambridgeshire."

The Cambridgeshire Educational Partnership has been formed to bring together school headteachers, education professionals and young people from across Cambridgeshire. King’s Ely, Ely College and Littleport and East Cambridgeshire Academy joined forces to set up the organisation last autumn, but since then almost a dozen other local primary and secondary schools, from both the independent and state sectors, have come on board.

The aim of the partnership is to work together for the mutual benefit of all pupils, and to provide opportunities for students from schools within the partnership to gain access to a variety of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths), MFL (Modern Foreign Languages), Arts, Sport and Enrichment activities.

To find out more about the partnership, please contact Celia Etchegoyen by emailing CeliaEtchegoyen@kingsely.org