Secondary project briefs (ages 11+)


Bronze Awards are typically completed by students aged 11+. They complete a ten-hour project which is a perfect introduction to STEM project work. Over the course of the project, teams of students design their own investigation, record their findings, and reflect on their learnings. This process gives students a taste of what it is like to be a scientist or engineer in the real-world.


Silver Awards are typically completed by students aged 14+ over thirty hours. Project work at Silver level is designed to stretch your students and enrich their STEM studies. Students direct the project, determining the project’s aim and how they will achieve it. They carry out the project, record and analyse their results and reflect on the project and their learnings. All Silver projects are assessed by CREST assessors via our online platform.


Gold Awards are typically completed by students aged 16+ over seventy hours. Students’ projects are self-directed, longer term and immerse them in real research. At this level, we recommend students work with a mentor from their chosen STEM field of study. All Gold projects are assessed by CREST assessors via our online platform. There are more CREST approved resources that have been developed by our partners and providers specific to your region.


There are more CREST approved resources that have been developed by our partners and providers specific to your region.


Find out how to build practical CREST projects into secondary science lessons using our free teacher guidance pack. Supporting this guidance are easy-to-use, free-to-download mapping workbooks, which match individual Bronze, Silver and Gold CREST Award projects with each area of the secondary science curricula for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. You can download and save your own copy of the relevant mapping workbook via the following links:


England

Northern Ireland

Scotland

Wales


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Student guide - Gold

  • Text
  • Crest
  • Reflections
  • Mentor
  • Criteria
  • Individual
  • Submit
  • Completed
  • Assessor
  • Assessment
  • Wider
This resource is published under an Attribution - non-commercial - no derivatives 4.0 International creative commons licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

4. Completing your

4. Completing your profile form Showing you’ve met the CREST criteria: CREST Gold profile form Each student who contributed to the project needs to submit a profile form – not doing this will result in you being asked to resubmit. When you fill in the profile form, put the page numbers where the assessor can find the evidence and the paragraph number on that page. The pages in your report should be numbered, but you don’t need to number the paragraphs in your report. A sample profile form might look like this: If you think evidence for some criteria can be found in your personal reflections, you should refer the assessor to these sections using the same system as above.

5. Personal reflections Writing your personal reflections As well as the report that focuses on what you created or discovered and the process of your project, each team member should record personal reflections as part of their student profile. This is where you think about what you did during the project and what you have learned. It is an opportunity to think about what you did well in your project and tell us what you think you could have done differently. This process of reflective learning is widely used in industry and universities to help people to learn and it is an essential part of the CREST process. For team projects Each team member will need to complete around half a page of reflection covering: My role in the team and tasks I completed How my project was successful/not successful What I learned What impact the results of my project might have on other people/the wider world What I would have done to improve my work What I’d do to develop the project in the future We use this to see what everyone in the team did. Be clear and honest about what you contributed and don’t be shy about telling us your individual achievements! A good example of a student’s personal reflections from a team project would be: I acted as team leader for our project. This meant I helped pull everyone else’s work together, and helped everyone make sure we stuck to the plan we set at the beginning. Sometimes we disagreed about aspects of the project, and we discussed this as a team. I would try to find a way that everyone was happy with, or when this wasn’t possible, made the best decision for the project on the information I had available. I had never led a team before so I had to learn ways to get everyone to work together, stick to deadlines, and not take things personally. I struggled a lot at first, but I talked to our team mentor and he helped me find ways to do this really well. These included learning how to manage a meeting, and keep information flowing so everyone knew what was going on. To improve our project, I would have spent more time getting the details of what the mentor wanted clear for all of us at the beginning of the project, so we had a much better idea of what we were aiming for. This would have helped us set off in the right direction instead of wasting time going in directions that wouldn’t work for the mentor. In future, we would develop a more reliable propulsion system, and reduce the weight of the chassis, as we know the strain on the engine caused by the weight of the chassis was part of the reason why it failed. We also think our vehicle could be used in other production lines, and want to investigate the possibilities and potential markets for our mentor.

Bronze level

Ten hour projects recommended for ages 11+. Find out more about this level and how to gain a CREST Award on the Bronze Awards page.


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Bronze

Silver level

Thirty hour projects recommended for ages 14+. Find out more about this level and how to gain a CREST Award on the Silver Award page.


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Silver

Gold level

Seventy hour projects recommended for ages 16+. Find out more about this level and how to gain a CREST Award on the Gold Awards page


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Gold

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