New coding club to encourage the next generation of women in STEM

Drax is offering girls at Selby Community Primary School the perfect opportunity to grow their budding science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) skills with a brand-new coding club, helping students learn coding by creating and programming interactive projects.

Launched by the Drax Community and Education team at Drax Power Station near Selby in North Yorkshire, the club aims to promote STEM education among young girls – a key part of Drax’s long-term community engagement strategy.

Currently, only 29% of STEM professionals in the UK are women. Research from the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) shows the primary reason for gender disparity in the STEM workforce is that women are not encouraged to think about STEM careers in school.^[1]

The students at the club will work on a number of tasks to encourage problem-solving, creativity, and collaboration, including a project to build a replica of Sparky, a Condition Based Maintenance ‘robodog’ from Boston Dynamics, used to autonomously inspect equipment at Drax Power Station. Students will be given the opportunity to do this with a Lego SPIKE set, which combines colourful Lego building blocks, easy-to-use hardware and an intuitive drag-and-drop coding language.

Alongside these collaborative projects, students will be given examples of the real-life applications of the software they develop with the associated careers and roles available at Drax Power Station.

Jane Breach, UK Community & Education Manager said: “We are delighted to launch our brand-new coding club for girls at Selby Community Primary School. The club will provide a supportive and engaging place for girls to develop their coding skills and help to foster an environment where young girls can develop a passion for STEM subjects, which will be vital in encouraging more women into STEM careers.”

Anna Minihan, A teacher at Selby Community Primary School said: “The Lego Spike Coding Club that we ran for girls in Y5 and 6 was a fantastic experience. The kit itself is amazing – the girls loved being able to choose which Lego robot they would build and enjoyed following the instructions on-screen to construct them. Once they completed the builds, they were able to use the laptops to write their own code to program them to do all sorts of things. This really stretched their problem-solving skills and allowed them to apply some skills that they already had in coding.

“We feel so fortunate to have the opportunity to use this kit in our school and I’m so looking forward to the next sessions.”

[1] Over one million women now in STEM occupations but still account for 29% of STEM workforce