CREST Awards is the British Science Association’s flagship education programme, providing enrichment activities to inspire, engage and connect young people aged 5-19 across the UK with science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM).
All CREST education resources are free; All CREST Awards are free of charge to apply for students in Welsh schools, thanks to funding from the Welsh Government.
Free resources that align with your curriculum
Use tried and tested STEM project resources that align with the four purposes of the Curriculum for Wales.
Save yourself time
Easy to run activities have been planned for you with well thought out, time-saving instruction cards, including scenarios to introduce the activities.
Engage all students
Classes of mixed ability students, including ALN students, can engage with the activities, at the same time.
Increase STEM subject choice
As covered in our recent CREST impact report, students who complete a Silver Award are also 21% more likely to study a STEM subject at AS Level, rising to 38% for students eligible for free school meals.
Skills for applications (and for life!)
A CREST Award is also a brilliant achievement for students to include on a UCAS form, job application, apprenticeship application, or talk about in an interview.
In fact, a CREST Award is great to highlight in any situation for young people to demonstrate an aptitude and passion for STEM, or the skills to independently complete an investigative project. Read the story of Toby Hill here, who gained a Gold CREST Award at 16 which helped him get admitted to study engineering at the University of Cambridge and now works at Mewburn Ellis.
Star: 3-7 years typical age
Relatable real life science activities for children starting their STEM journey.
Time to complete: 8 x 1 hour challenges
SuperStar: 7-11 years typical age
Relatable real life science activities for children looking for a challenge.
Time to complete: 8 x 1 hour challenges
Discovery: 10-14 years typical age
Explore student-led work with a collaborative project in a real-world context.
Time to complete: 5 hours (can be done in a day)
All ages given are simply a guideline, choose the Award level you think is most suitable for your students.
You can use this account to submit CREST project work and order certificates.
Browse the activities on our CREST library. For Star and SuperStar select eight activities to run. For Discovery select one.
This is the fun part! Children take on the role of investigators, while you use the organiser card to help set up the activity.
CREST Awards are non-competitive. If you feel your students have sufficiently taken part then they will have achieved their CREST Award.
Log in to your CREST account and request certificates. These will be posted to your delivery address.
Find your perfect resource, with over a hundred free CREST project resources and challenge packs available incorporating a range of STEM activities and experiments which span numerous themes to suit varying skills and age groups.
To support Welsh language education, we offer several CREST Award projects in Welsh:
Discovery: 10-14 years typical age
Explore student-led work with a collaborative project in a real-world context.
Time to complete: 5 hours (can be done in a day)
Bronze: 11+ typical age
Introduce STEM project work with a focus on fun and transferable skills.
Time to complete: 10 hours
Silver: 14+ typical age
Develop experience of the scientific process in a self-directed investigation.
Time to complete: 30 hours
Gold: 16+ typical age
Awaken potential as students conduct real research in a long-term, open-ended project.
Time to complete: 70 hours
All ages given are simply a guideline, choose the Award level you think is most suitable for your students.
You can use this account to submit CREST project work and order certificates.
Browse the activities on our CREST library, or students can create and design their own project.
This is the fun part! Students work independently (in groups or individually) to complete their projects.
Discovery: Students use their passport to record and reflect.
Bronze, Silver, Gold: Students can record their work in any format, ensuring they demonstrate the CREST criteria.
Discovery and Bronze: Are assessed by you, then you upload a sample of the work.
Silver and Gold: You upload all the students work alongside a profile form to be assessed by a trained industry professional.
Log in to your CREST account and request certificates. These will be posted to your delivery address.
For Silver and Gold students must pass the external assessment to receive certificates.
Find your perfect resource, with over a hundred free CREST project resources and challenge packs available incorporating a range of STEM activities and experiments which span numerous themes to suit varying skills and age groups.
To support Welsh language education, we offer several CREST Award projects in Welsh:
This includes our accessible Bronze project for young people with SEND:
Wales based educators can receive free CREST Awards/certificates. To claim free Awards, create or sign into an online CREST account. Submit the required information. When your submission is completed, it is progressed to the payment round, where you will be asked to input your address. 100% discount will be added at this point.
Find out how CREST maps to the Welsh curriculum:
Inspiring examples of Welsh teachers running CREST:
Rachael Mackay from Monnow Primary School in Newport has run CREST for five years. She used Discovery projects to achieve the four purposes. She ran ‘Machines of the future’ and ‘Wild creations’, which require the children to work in groups and develop ideas.
Find out how Rachael ran the project.
This blog is also available in Welsh here.
“Machines of the future’ hit so many of the four purposes. The children had to be ambitious and capable, as much of their work was team-based, with children taking specific roles within the group.
“They had to be enterprising and creative in order to think about and put together ideas for a machine that nobody else had yet thought of – and of course they then had to physically create that machine!”
CREST can also be run remotely as Alicia Davies, who was a teacher at Ysgol Nantgwyn in the South Wales Valleys in 2020, found out. While schools were closed, Alicia ran CREST activities with her Year 4 to Year 8 online, to ensure they were still receiving an enriching STEM education. We are of course no longer in a lockdown situation, but encouraging pupils to work on projects at home, to self-manage their projects, is beneficial for developing independent learning.
Find out how Alicia ran CREST Awards remotely.
“The emphasis [of running CREST projects] was also on self-management, challenge and resourcefulness; pupils had to complete the challenges using whatever resources they had available to them in their lockdown situation, so either around the house or found on their walks.
This made it very topical and relevant, and meant that the limitations of lockdown were built in as a driver of innovation, rather than a limiting factor.”
Matt has been encouraging his KS3 students to engage with D&T and develop problem-solving, technical skills, resilience and creativity skills through Bronze and Discovery Awards. Integrating his existing project work into the CREST criteria.
Find out how Matt ran the Awards:
Part 1: CREST helps design and technology take off
Part 2: CREST and the four purposes of the Curriculum for Wales
“If you were to look at a lot of the projects that your department was already delivering and then you looked at what you needed to do to get a CREST Award, you would probably be quite surprised by how close you were.”
See Science is the Regional CREST Support Organisation (RCSO) in Wales. They can provide expert guidance throughout the CREST Awards process and work to support the teaching and learning of STEM subjects in Wales within a real world context.
Or you can get in touch with the CREST team at crest@britishscienceassociation.org
Engage Teacher Network, run by the British Science Association and managed through the CREST Awards scheme, is a community of teachers in schools in challenging circumstances who share ideas, access inspiring resources and apply for grants to help bring science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) to life for all young people. What’s more, it’s completely free!
