School teams with future facing science projects are now invited to enter awards.

The KM Bright Spark Awards 2017 are now open to entries from groups of pupils with innovative and inventive science, technology, engineering and mathematics projects. One of the awards' supporters Benenden Hospital Trust is particularly on the lookout for medically minded entries from future doctors, nurses, health workers and researchers.

Claire Harley, director of patient services at Benenden Hospital Trust, said: “The Bright Sparks Awards are a real opportunity for children of all ages to showcase their ideas around science, technology and innovation. We know that all of these skills are vital to future medicine and research and these awards help cultivate that natural curiosity that young people need to progress to being our future medics, scientists, inventors and innovators.”

The annual awards aim to increase the cool factor of STEM subjects in schools. Primary and secondary school students are encouraged to collaborate using cross-curricular skills and submit projects which fall into one of the three award categories: Innovation, Invention or Invention.

Finalists will be invited to the annual awards event, which is run in a dragons’ den-style format. The students will be filmed in advance in school to show the detail of the project. This is screened before the students take to the stage to describe their creation and dragons quiz the youngsters on their initiative. Different panels of dragons will judge the varying categories or year groups and award trophies and experience prizes to the students and schools.

Overall Bright Spark Awards champions will win a top prize of £500.

The KM Bright Spark Awards are supported by Benenden Hospital Trust, ITL, Golding Homes, BAE Systems, Prendon Panels, Discovery Park, and Pfizer.

For more information or to submit an entry, visit www.kmcharityteam.co.uk/schools/brightspark/.