GET INVOLVED

The ISA board constantly listens to all stakeholders, academics and think-tanks to design and evolve a rewarding association model. Currently, we offer the following synergistic models of association: (This is in addition to regular annual and life memberships for individuals and institutions)

COMPANY ‘ADOPT-A- SCHOOL’ MODEL

In the ‘adopt’ model a company sponsors a class(es) in a school and provides the outreach employees to co-teach the programme. ISA will provide the training, resources, vetting of co-teachers, and support for school engagement and PR opportunities.

COMPANY / ORGANISATION FOSTER-A- SCHOOL MODEL

In the ‘foster’ model a company sponsors a class(es) in a school but does not provide the outreach employees to co-teach the programme. Instead ISA will recruit specialists from the relevant field to co-teach the programme on the organisations behalf.

FOR COMPANY: How do I choose and engage with a School?

ISA will assist and support companies and organisations in a school choice for sponsorship

Criteria to note:

Programmes are designed for primary and secondary classes. The principal and class teachers must confirm their commitment to and engagement with the process to be of maximum benefit to the kids, as their co-operation is vital for co-teaching and the smooth running of the programme. ISA will confirm this with the schools.

Programmes must be delivered to an entire year group e.g. if a school has two 5th classes we cannot deliver a programme to one batch of 5th class and not the other, for obvious reasons! ISA will work with the company to identify a school with the desired number of classes to match the sponsorship level.

ISA can work with the company to provide a list and map of schools to suit the company. Company co-teachers and the relevant class teachers will be paired up at the pre-programme training.

The school (as the company) may have a preference for Summer or Spring programmes, depending on their own schedule and the class group involved. ISA will confirm this with the schools.

School choice may be influenced by:

• Geographic location: proximity of school to either the company site and/or co-teachers is usually important to minimise off-site and travel time
• Addressing disadvantage: companies may choose to preferentially select government schools based possibly in a rural region. Government schools in rural or backward districts have been identified as suffering from some level of educational disadvantage according to criteria assessed by the Department of Education
• Addressing Gender Diversity in Relation to STEM: companies may choose to e.g. preferentially support girls schools (and/or encourage female co-teachers) to address the under- representation of girls and women engaging in STEM subjects and careers
• Employee Requests/Voting: some companies encourage employees to choose the schools

Once the company has chosen their preferred school(s) to sponsor STEAM, ISA will contact and set everything up with the chosen school(s).

For School: How do I get my school involved?

If you would like to have a STEAM programme run in your school there are a number of opportunities/possibilities for engagement:

• If you are nominated by a company for sponsorship ISA will contact you on their behalf.
• You can contact ISA directly or register your interest here and a representative of our team will contact you about our list.
• If you can help us find a company to sponsor your school please contact us, as above.
• Schools can opt to pay for the programmes themselves.

Write to us for more information and options: [email protected]