We want our students leave us with the skills to thrive in a fast-changing world, equipping them to play an active role in tackling the global challenges facing humanity, such as Climate Change, Food Security, the 4th Industrial Revolution and Gender Equality.
This approach starts at the the beginning of Year 7, with all students taking part in an interdisciplinary Enquiry Week and developing their skills through experiential learning, trips and engagement with industry. Year 8 students undertake a significant research project, the Fryer Project Qualification. This focus continues into the Senior School and Sixth Form with an impressive range of opportunities for students to further develop their creative problem solving skills. We are one of only a handful of schools to offer the Engineering GCSE and the Global Perspectives iGCSE.
Our innovative approach to STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) places real emphasis on harnessing our students’ creative talents and blending them with skills in critical thinking, creative problem solving, entrepreneurship and leadership as part of our vibrant interdisciplinary curriculum.
We challenge our students to apply these skills to real-world problems facing industry and society today. With our explicit focus on creativity, we give girls and boys everything they need to take an idea and make it fly.
Watch the vide to meet Aliaksei, one of our recent graduates now working on an Engineering PhD at the University of Southampton.
Our Sixth Form students achieve outstanding academic progress across the STEAM disciplines, placing our value-add amongst the very best in the country.
The STEAM approach is not just about keeping up with educational trends. It’s about equipping students with a versatile skill set, fostering creativity, and preparing them for a world where the only constant is change. By integrating STEAM into our curriculum, we are not only enhancing academic learning but also nurturing the innovators, thinkers, and leaders of tomorrow.
Embracing a Holistic Education
STEAM education transcends traditional boundaries between disciplines. It’s not just about learning facts; it’s about integrating concepts and applying them in real-world contexts. As Sir Ken Robinson, a renowned education expert, aptly stated, “Creativity is as important in education as literacy and we should treat it with the same status.”
Developing Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving Skills
In a world that’s changing at an unprecedented pace, the ability to think critically and solve complex problems is invaluable. STEAM education fosters these skills by encouraging students to question, experiment, and innovate. Dr Mae Jemison, an astronaut and physician, emphasises this: “The arts and sciences are avatars of human creativity. They are our attempt to build an understanding of the universe and our place in it.”
Enhancing Creativity and Innovation
The ‘A’ in STEAM – Arts – is what sets our approach apart. It adds a dimension of creativity and innovation, crucial in a world where these skills are increasingly sought after. As stated by Steve Jobs, “It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough—it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields the results that make our hearts sing.”
Preparing for Future Careers
STEAM education aligns with the future job market, which demands a diverse set of skills. According to the World Economic Forum, problem-solving, critical thinking, and creativity are among the top skills needed in the future workforce. STEAM makes students adaptable and versatile for such demands.
Collaboration and Communication
STEAM inherently promotes teamwork, a skill that’s vital in most modern workplaces. It emphasises communication and collaboration, preparing students for real-world scenarios where cross-functional teamwork is the norm.
Leighton Park offers several academic subjects you don’t find in most schools. Examples include Engineering as a GCSE option, as well as Music Technology A Level and Creative Digital Media (Film & TV) BTEC.
Our students also love our dedicated STEAM clubs, which support our budding engineers, designers, scientists, medics and technologists to experiment, explore, create and build. Examples include coding club, repair shop, robotics, maths team, design & build, club STEAM, Music Technology Club, TV & Film Club and a wealth of creative hobbies to fire up students’ imaginations.
Every year we celebrate British Science Week which is an opportunity for students to explore beyond the curriculum and experience new ways of discovering and experimenting with scientific principles.
A weekly student-led club has been launched to introduce girls in Years 7 and 8 to STEM careers and inspire their future choices for GCSE, A Level, University and beyond. The three co-founders, Eva, Alice and Daisy, are all committed Year 11 scientists and enjoy their STEM subjects within the curriculum. Their initiative grew out of the girls’ Year 10 Global Perspectives project which focussed on education for all and they were keen to begin by extending their own love of science to Fryer students.
Students have the opportunity to take part in a wide array of competitions and challenges throughout the year:
As well as our interdisciplinary curriculum and co-curricular options, there are lots of STEAM experiences to get involved in throughout the year.
STEAM Experiences include:
On Tuesday 20th May, Leighton Park School hosted our annual STEAMfest event, welcoming 300 Year 5 students from local Primary and Prep schools, including St Piran’s, The Oratory Prep School … Read More +
The Schools Analyst Competition from the Royal Society of Chemistry, enabled Leighton Park’s Lower Sixth Chemistry students to demonstrate and expand on existing chemistry knowledge, skills, and aptitude for analytical … Read More +
On Friday 21st March the entire Year 7 cohort set off for a fascinating day trip to Bletchley Park, the historic site that played a key role in the code-breaking … Read More +
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