The Cessnock Academy of STEM Excellence – known as CASE – is a partnership between Cessnock High School and its feeder primary schools (Cessnock, Cessnock East, Kearsley, Kitchener and Abermain).

Cessnock High deputy principal of STEM, Dr Scott Sleap, says a focus on these subjects is fundamental in allowing children to grow into lifelong learners and access the jobs of the future.

“Seventy-five percent of the fastest-growing jobs require STEM skills – and 65 percent of those jobs don’t exist yet,” he said.

“We have to change the way kids learn.”

Through CASE’s programs, students will work together to solve real-world problems, developing skills such as team work, creativity, problem solving, emotional intelligence and cognitive flexibility.

And the younger they start, the better – primary school students will have access to technology including virtual reality, robotics and coding.

Dr Sleap said CASE will aim to create a “seamless transition” from primary school to high school, after identifying inconsistencies in what some Year 7 students had learned compared to others.

“With STEM, we had to start from scratch, meaning some students were bored and others were struggling,” he said.

Dr Sleap said it was important to have programs for students who are advanced, as well as those who struggle.

Year 7 student Kayla Johnson was identified as a talented STEM student and has been working on an individualised program with Dr Sleap.

She has constructed a humanoid robot, named Harold, that will be used to teach other students about programming and problem solving.

VIDEO: Watch Harold the Robot in action in the post below.

Kayla’s next challenge will be to program Harold to solve a series of complex problems at an event to be held at the University of Newcastle later this year.

Kayla said she was excited to get the opportunity to expand her STEM skills.

“I work at a fast pace, this gives me something to work on,” she said.

Kayla said she is keen to explore the world of robotics and engineering, and is also interested in web series creation, animation, poetry and writing.

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An all-girls F1 in Schools team and a robotics competition are also on the CASE agenda this year.

School-industry partnerships are also a key focus for Dr Sleap, who worked for Regional Development Australia for 20 years before returning to the Department of Education this year.

Google, Boeing Defence and Obelisk Systems are among the companies he has lined up to partner with the Cessnock schools this year.

“If we want to do things real-world, it has to be collaborative,” he said.

Dr Sleap has organised for some of Australia’s leading science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) professionals to speak at an education conference in the Hunter Valley this week.

The Cessnock Community of Great Public Schools Future Focused Learning STEM conference will be held at Crowne Plaza Hunter Valley on Friday.

It will follow Regional Development Australia’s STEM Workforce conference in Newcastle on Thursday.

The Cessnock conference will bring together bring together representatives from primary, secondary and tertiary education institutions, industry and key players in the STEM fields.

The speaker line-up includes Sydney maths teacher Eddie Woo (Australia’s 2018 Local Hero of the Year), celebrity STEM geek and author Dr Adam Spencer (Triple J), futurist Mark Pesce, Google Australia’s engineering community and outreach manager Sally-Ann Williams, and many others.

More than 400 delegates are expected to attend the conference, with Dr Spencer to speak at the gala dinner in the evening.