BRENTWOOD, Essex, 04 July, 2018 – The Primary Engineer programme for 2017/18, which aims to encourage primary-school-age children into engineering careers, culminated with a celebration event at Ford’s Dunton Technical Centre. Around 120 students from 20 local schools took part in a day of competition to showcase the electric vehicle projects they had worked on for the previous eight months of the academic year.

Primary Engineer, a non-profit organisation, run a variety of engineering-based courses to make engineering fun and exciting, helping to inspire the next generation of engineers. Starting with a teacher-training day in October 2017, Primary Engineer linked Ford engineers with local schools to boost awareness of STEM related professions and support teachers and students in the practical aspects of the course.

“It is well recognised that introducing engineering principles to primary aged children can make a real difference in how they view the industry,” said Sarah Haslam, Product Vehicle Team (PVT) Manager, Ford of Europe. “The Primary Engineer programme leaves students with a positive impression of engineering as a creative and fun industry. This can only be a net benefit for the future.”

Ford Motor Company Fund, a non-profit organisation and the philanthropic arm of Ford Motor Company, supported Primary Engineer with a £15,000 grant to execute this programme. Ford Fund invests in innovative programmes focused on Education, Sustainable Communities and Safe, Smart Mobility. Ford has renewed this partnership for the 2018/19 academic year.

“The support offered by Ford allowed us to bring Primary Engineer programmes to schools across Essex, culminating in this fantastic celebration event,” said Dr Susan Scurlock, CEO and Founder, Primary Engineer. “The pupils have acquired a range of skills and shown a flair for engineering, and with our continued partnership with Ford we look forward to inspiring the next generation of engineers.”

Ford and Primary Engineer are both active partners of the Year of Engineering, a government campaign aimed at reducing the skills gap within the engineering industry. Government envoy to the campaign, Stephen Metcalfe MP, attended the event and gave a speech to the young students about the important role engineering plays in the UK economy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeJel6084so&feature=youtu.be

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Sarah Haslam, Product Vehicle Team (PVT) Manager, Ford of Europe said: “Ford is excited to have worked with Primary Engineer to inspire the next generation of engineers. It is well recognised that introducing engineering principles to primary aged children can make a real difference in how they view the industry. The Primary Engineer programme will leave students with a positive impression of engineering as a creative and fun industry. This can only be a net benefit for the future.”

FordMotor Company Fund, the philanthropic arm of Ford Motor Company, teamed up with Primary Engineer, a not for profit organisation which has national programmes that provide the mechanism for teachers to embed engineering into their curriculum teaching. Primary Engineer works with schools and professional engineers around the country to give pupils the opportunity to work on engineering programmes together to help them to gain a new perspective on careers in engineering – highlighting just how important engineering is to the world in which we all live.

Dr. Susan Scurlock, CEO and founder of Primary Engineer said: “The support offered by Ford UK and the Ford Fund allowed us to bring Primary Engineer programmes to schools across Essex, culminating in this fantastic celebration event. In this academic year we’ve engaged with over 1000 pupils over the county. The pupils have acquired skills and have shown a flair for engineering and with our continued partnership with Ford we look forward to inspiring the next generation of engineers.”.

Primary Engineer is a not for profit organisation founded in 2005 and is directly responsible for engaging 44,000 children, 2222 teachers and 829 engineers with their range of programmes in 2017 that enable STEM by stealth learning for children.

Ford Motor Company Fund is the philanthropic arm of Ford Motor Company. Established in 1949, Ford Fund invests in transformational programs that advance innovation, empower people, promote social mobility and improve community prosperity. Ford Fund works with local and global partners to create opportunities in education, encourage safe driving, enlist employee volunteers and enrich community life. For more information, visit http://community.ford.com, or join us on Facebook @FordFund and Twitter @FordFund

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One teacher said “I had a brilliant day and have come away feeling more confident, more inspired and excited to go back and show the children what they can do! Thanks!”

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Meet the Engineer event attracts huge interest amongst Edinburgh schools more than two hundred Edinburgh pupils and their teachers attended a Primary Engineer event hosted by the National Museum of Scotland on Wednesday 15th November.

Pupils heard about the engineers’ life and work, had a chance to visit the stunning Science and Technology galleries at the Museum for further inspiration and then went back to school to answer the question “If you were an engineer, what would you do?” to be entered in to the nationwide Scottish Engineering Leaders Award competition.

The panel engaging with the young people brought unique perspectives to the event:

Vicky Hamilton, a 25-year-old product design engineering graduate from the University of Strathclyde, was inspired to invent and bring to market an upgraded kneepad said to decrease pressure on knees by 76 per cent after her tradesman dad’s knee complaints around the dinner table. Her Recoil Kneepads are now widely available.

Legal Engineer Philip Hannay is Managing Director at the award-winning Cloch Solicitors and lectures in Intellectual Property law and entrepreneurism (albeit normally to an older audience!)

Lynne McIntosh is a Senior Manufacturing Engineer at the University of Strathclyde’s ground-breaking Advanced Forming Research Centre. Although interested in maths and science at school, she had never considered a career in engineering until inspired by Dr Peter Hughes who spoke at the Scottish Summer Space School on behalf of Primary Engineer.

Last year, nearly 12,000 pupils in Scotland answered the question, If you were an engineer, what would you do? as part of the Scottish Engineering Leaders Award and this year it is expected that record will be smashed.

Short-listed and winning entries will be put on display at an exhibition on 7th & 8th June 2018 at the Barony Hall in Glasgow and one of the entries will be turned into a prototype by Masters students in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Strathclyde.

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With the cold,snowy weather we still had all teachers attend our Primary Engineer training event on the 8th December in Oldham. Sticking with the cold weather we went for a winter wonderland themed Key stage 1 project for the teachers to ‘pimp’ up their vehicles.

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Primary schools from both North and South Tyneside, Durham, Sunderland and Teesside were supported by organisations including Nissan, South Tyneside Council, Elring Klinger and the North East Automotive Alliance to enable them to have their teachers work with engineers and be given the tools and resources to deliver an engineering activity with the support of a Classroom Engineer to their pupils.

The teacher training day delivered by Primary Engineer is one of a range of courses that teachers can attend and then deliver in their own classroom. Each course is specifically designed to be commensurate with the appropriate key stage curriculum. This includes Early Years, Primary and Secondary school programmes and Primary Engineer offers further opportunities for young people to display their creativity through its hugely successful Leaders Award competition open to all schools across the UK.

Training day – SASMI (Skills Academy Sustainable Manufacturing Innovation) Nissan

A cold December morning was left behind as the teachers signed-in at SASMI Reception with each having an empty shoe-box under their arm. The humble shoe-box was a pre-requisite of attending the course and was the central resource to the “Structural and Mechanisms with Electricity” activity which was the workshop being focused on for the day.

Teachers were taken through the different stages of shoe-box car design and constructed their own models using tools and engineering methodologies with which many were unfamiliar. Their first task was to build a basic model “Apprentice Level 1” with a shoe-box on wheels decorated with a Christmas theme. This is a task that could easily be replicated with their younger pupils combining creativity and functionality. The day progressed to “Engineer Level 2” with the construction of a wooden chassis to support the axles/wheels, motor, battery and shoe-box and needed to be able to overcome challenges including negotiating the ascent and descent of graduated ramp.

The teachers were given both the practical and online resource links to deliver the activity in their classrooms, and also the opportunity to invite an Engineer along to support the sessions. Participating schools are part of local hubs which hold a Celebration event where school teams compete across the different Apprentice/Engineer levels before a panel of judges, and the winning teams are invited to represent the hubs at the Regional finals at the end of the Summer term.

The teachers attending the day were very enthused “I had a fantastic day with a good amount of practical and theory based learning. Good facilities and a vast amount of knowledge from the experts on offer………Very practical and everything modelled well ……..Really interesting day which helped develop my skills and confidence, and a good support to my limited knowledge about engineering……..Thoroughly enjoyed the day and the project is one that we are planning to use within a whole school engineering week next term. I can see it motivating many of our children.”

Rohan Kohli, North East Automotive Alliance also enjoyed the day “I am the Classroom Engineer working with Cragside Primary school. As a former pupil of the school and I am really pleased to be given the opportunity to possibly inspire some of them to want to become Engineers.” 

Liam Weatherill, Primary Engineer Regional Director (North)

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Taking place at HMS Culdrose, Cornwall, this was Primary Engineer’s first time delivering training in a Faraday cage in an aircraft hangar! Despite being very coldall day, the training went really well with 25 teachers from 15 schools participating, aided very enthusiastically by Royal Navy engineers.

One teacher summed up the training “fantastic opportunity for personal CPD and whole class impact. I really believe this could be a gateway for some of my children accessing a career in engineering and superb to be linked with a navy engineer. Opens up so many opportunties.”

We’ll be back to HMS Culdrose on 3rd July for the Celebration Event!

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After the first event one teacher said “excellent fun, loved the practical nature, great to pair up with an engineer, good pace of session, amazing resources. Oneof the best courses I’ve been on!”

The second event was just as well-received: “very excited to get started with this in my school. Thank you for an inspirational and hands-on day.” We were pleased to work with BOMAG and the University for the first time and to be able to link 18 schools with engineers on the day.

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