Rullion proudly sponsored Manchester High School for Girls yesterday, in an initiative to encourage girls into STEM subjects.
39 (very enthusiastic!) Year six students were joined at their classroom in Manchester by two members of the STEMettes. Founded in 2013 by Anne-Marie Imafidon MBE, the STEMettes are an award-winning social enterprise which works to inspire and support young women into science, technology, engineering and maths careers, known collectively as STEM.
Rullion’s Client Director, Liz Kingston, formed part of a panel to which the girls asked questions about working in STEM careers. Lots of interesting questions were posed by the audience including everything from "What do you most enjoy about your job?" all the way through to "Who is your favourite Disney character?". Liz was joined by expert panellists Catherine King and Myfanwy Edwards, from Fujitsu, and Danielle Haugedal-Wilson from Rullion’s partner, Co-op, who as a Technology Architect from their Digital Team was perfectly placed to judge and select the coding winners from the session. Catherine, Myfanwy and Danielle brought a career in IT to life and were brilliant at demonstrating how their jobs have changed and evolved over the years, just like technology.
Yasmin and Haleema of the STEMettes led the girls through an initial task to set parameters of consecutive based instructions, then a session on HTML coding before tasking them in tribes to design their own web page.
Yasmin commented “Today has gone brilliantly. Doing this as early as Year 6 is something we need to do more of so that we are able to show girls that they can do whatever the set their minds to.”
Lessons shared by the girls on the day were "perseverance", "making mistakes helps you learn", "to keep on trying until you get it right" and "to have fun with IT". Many of the girls are going to continue coding after the session which is fantastic!
Following the event, Liz Kingston outlined, “Another great event and we are delighted to be able to sponsor this for the second year! At Rullion, we are delighted to ignite the next generation’s imagination regarding STEM and we would like to thank our guests from Fujitsu & the Co-op for their support. Bringing tech to life is an essential part of inspiring girls to consider a career in IT and we are privileged to be part of such a wonderful session."