PUPILS at Corbridge Middle School finished the summer term on a high with a string of successes notched up by the school’s STEM Club.

The Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths group, which is led by subject leader for science, Dr Meryl Batchelder, gained regional and national recognition for their work.

The club picked up six trophies at the Big Bang Science Fair, held at Northumbria University on July 14, with three teams of pupils now through to the national event, due to take place in Birmingham in March.

The club also took on the Water Explorer challenge, which encourages students aged between eight and 14 from across the world to come up with innovative ideas and take on interactive missions to help save water.

After coming up with cheap designs for water filters, analysing how well people wash their hands and even endeavouring to find out whether tap water was better than bottled water, youngsters involved in the club were given the title of global team of the week out of 2,600 participating schools.

They then went on to be selected as UK team of the month for July, with their ideas winning them the accolade of UK finalists, which will see them travel to London in September to visit the HSBC headquarters.

Pupils Ellie Robson, Edie Martell, Lorna Carvell, Charlotte Maughan, Cecile Durkin, Hannah Forster, Alex Timms, Ivor Evans, David Richardson, Ben Ryrie and Thomas Spencer also achieved bronze awards for enrichment projects through a scheme offered by the British Science Association.

“The ideas and hard work the students have put in to this has been fantastic to see,” said Dr Batchelder.

CREST awards offer real-life experience of being a scientist by allowing students to develop their own project to investigate while improving their enquiry, problem solving and communication skills.

Another 11 students at St Joseph’s Middle School in Hexham also completed the bronze level of the programme, which requires 10 hours of independent study, before the end of term.

Jazmine Armstrong, Kate Walsh, Conor Frear, Gus Gledson, Maisie Saunders, Ella Martin Dobson, Lucina Millar, Ruby Watts, Emma Gaukroger, Ralph Robson and Mina Dodd were all successful.