Warrington Council Launches Primary Engineer programme

Warrington Council, partnership with Warrington & Co and the funding and engineer support of Cavendish Nuclear launched the Primary Engineer programme for Warrington schools on the 7th November 2019 at the Orford Jubilee Neighbourhood hub in Warrington.

The Warrington programme is running over 3 years with 30 local schools, sending teachers to attend training days where they are taken through the steps required to deliver the “Structures and Mechanisms with Basic Electrics” programme in their own classrooms.

Cavendish Nuclear, based at Birchwwod Park, Warrington, are supplying engineers from their workforce to act as “Classroom Engineers” and bringing the world of industry directly to the pupils.

The programme was officially launched by the Leader of Warrington Council Russ Bowden with presentations from Liam Weatherill, Regional Director (Primary Engineer), and Fran Worthington, Sellafield Business Director (Cavendish Nuclear) shown left to right.

The Cavendish Nuclear Outreach team were represented by Hollie Ashworth and Joe Sheppard who also presented.

Teachers from 14 Warrington schools attended the launch which formed the start of the training day which had each school introduced to their respective Classroom Engineer and worked together as teams through the training activity.

Liam Weatherill Regional Director (Primary Engineer) said “Training days are great fun in addition to being informative and a vehicle for creating the teacher/engineer team.

The teachers will deliver the sessions supported by the visiting engineer who will be able to answer the many questions from the pupils about their role and the many benefits of being an engineer. We are delighted that Cavendish Nuclear are supporting the programme.”

The teachers will deliver the “Structures and Mechanisms with Basic Electrics” activity in their schools at both key stage 1 and key stage 2 levels, with children completing workbooks throughout to track their learning and building model cars from basic materials.

All resources are provided to run the programme for 50 children per school, the resources can be used again in consecutive years and the relationship with the engineer can lead to other opportunities to promote STEM futures.

A Celebration event will be held in the Summer term where teams from participating schools will compete for prizes, presented by Cavendish Nuclear and Warrington Council.