As a School, BHS believes wholeheartedly in providing a well-rounded education for all of its students. By offering a high-quality and comprehensive Steam programme with updated facilities, the School is broadening the potential for a wider educational experience, not only for current and future BHS students, but also for others in the community.

BHS is approaching the integration of Steam in three ways: curriculum changes, extracurricular enhancements, and expanding and updating facilities.

The BHS Innovation Centre will be a 14,000 square-foot facility with five science labs, including robotics, two computer science labs, a design and creation space or Fab Lab, an Entrepreneurship Centre, a Digital Media Library & Resource Centre, and a Leadership Centre for girls with a programme that will be piloted at BHS, and then opened up to girls across Bermuda so that they can hone those skills that great leaders possess.

The new BHS Arts Wing will combine Music, Drama and Visual Arts into one building, allowing for better collaboration, and include 3 new Visual Arts studios, including Ceramics, Pottery and Digital Art, improved Music classrooms and practice rooms, a Drama studio and a Black Box theatre.

This modern BHS campus will be a place where future leaders in science, business, technology, and the arts acquire the skills needed to succeed: critical and creative thinking, dynamic problem-solving, resourcefulness, collaboration and communication, along with specific technological expertise.

BHS is confident that this initiative will help educate and empower the next generation of leaders in Bermuda.

Steam skills include critical thinking, resourcefulness, reflection and perseverance in addition to specific technological expertise. While a focus of these skills is already incorporated in our Guiding Statements, BHS is also creating ways to give more opportunities for students to study Steam subjects in a more holistic way.

From primary through to secondary, students are able to connect the content they learn to their goals, interests, and concerns through real-world connections and applications.

Now in its third year, Steam Week has proven to be a wildly popular event on the school calendar, and has provided students with a jam-packed agenda that encourages them to seek new solutions to complex problems through the five components of Steam. In 2015, Middle School students took on projects relating to ocean health, the lionfish epidemic, beach art and beach development.

After the tremendous success of that first year, Steam Week 2016 was expanded to include the entire secondary department, and more than a dozen experiences to choose from, with more hands-on projects requiring students to plan, create and build. Students built boats, designed ovens from recycled materials, created jewellery, and worked with numerous community partners on research projects related to the ocean. There was even an international component with 16 students invited to work on projects with the Science and Engineering Faculties at The University of Ontario Institute of Technology, the first school outside of Canada to be given this opportunity.

The cross-curricular approach to learning through the International Primary Curriculum, in the primary department, gives students every opportunity to work creatively and collaboratively, while integrating technology. Extracurricular clubs in primary, like Steam Club, computing and robotics also give students an early introduction to activities that will spark an interest in these subjects and hopefully create a lifelong passion in this field.

Schools worldwide are working to raise awareness of these various skills, and BHS is leading the way on Steam in Bermuda to enhance the education of the next generation and prepare them for success beyond school.