This year we have extended our STEAM pathway to senior school by co-designing alongside our students our ESTEAM programme which stands for Enterpreneutralship, Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths.

ESTEAM course selection will be open next week to all Year 10 and Year 11 even if you did no do STEAM in Junior School. Find out more about ESTEAM here

Our ESTEAM students have been working hard on their  Social Enterprise by utilising the Lean Canvas to develop a structure that allows them to break their ideas down into its key parts and evaluate where the risks and assumptions are. It was inspirational to hear first hand from Camilla and Charlotte from Straw the Line about their own business journey and how being agile and adaptable allowed them to overcome challenges such as Covid-19.   

While being young mums and working full-time, Camilla and Charlotte followed their  passion of trying to reduce plastic waste and  making a more sustainable Aotearoa. They thought big and started small, they took a risk and are saving the planet one slurp at a time through their production and education of rice straws.

It is important to expose our young women to positive role models such as Camilla and Charlotte . The lack of exposure to female role models and mentors in the ESTEAM fields contributes to the lack of young women who choose to pursue a career in the field. With more exposure to positive role models, young women could find women that they can relate to and aspire to be.

Here are what some our students had to say:

“The best take away from the talk for me personally was that your average kiwi women are taking a step for change. As your average kiwi girl, to see these woman take action to something they felt passionate about was great to see. Their product as well, is very innovative and effective as we have seen through their presentation. So not only did they take action to a flaw in society, they have made it effective. Which is amazing to see. Especially presenting for Westlake (a girls only school), I feel that it gave us hope for where we could be one day.”
Sian Moloney, Year 12 student ESTEAM

“The talk encouraged me to continue working hard towards my social enterprise. Seeing the success that the Straw The Line creators have achieved made me drive harder to make a difference in my community.” Brooke Bell, Year 11 ESTEAM student

“My biggest take away from the talk was to take risks and learn from mistakes. To not take failures to heart but take them as building blocks.” Shella Dabbach, Year 12 ESTEAM student

“Starting to make a small difference and educating others to make that difference.” Sharon Winson Jacob, Year 11 ESTEAM student