By Andrew Gascoine, Digital Engineer
It's no secret that we are in the middle of an engineering skills shortage. So, when 95% of the children who had completed our STEM Education Programme told us that they would now consider a career in engineering, we couldn't help but use this as the perfect platform to widen the scope of the initiative to further engage and inspire the next generation of engineers.
The Blue Coat School in Liverpool, whose head of science and maths had heard of the Mabey Hire STEM programme, was keen to provide this opportunity to their students. Unlike the normal delivery, a proposal to extend the programme to cater for their full group of year seven students (180 in total) was created, with the aim of showing them just how fascinating a career in engineering could be.
We would normally run weekly 90-minute after school sessions to classes of between 12-14 students over a 16 week period. To cater for the Liverpool school, we needed to adapt the programme to enable delivery over just two days. As you can imagine, this was a huge task but, by removing the digital elements of the course and running a series of two-hour sessions to six different classes, we were able to provide the children with an introduction to engineering through a series of fun, hands-on and highly interactive taster sessions.
Each class had a different topic that comprise our STEM Education Programme; Levers, Wheel & Axle, Gears, Pulleys, Pneumatics and Structures. These six two-hour sessions were delivered by eight of our STEM Ambassadors, who also shared their own experiences and helped put the children through their paces. Students carried out theoretical learning before they were let loose with LEGO Education materials and allowed to get creative, demonstrating what they had learnt.
We delivered the programme as part of the Maths curriculum and the feedback from the Blue Coat School has been extremely positive. Here’s what some of the children had to say:
- "I really liked working with Mabey Hire and hope to work for them in the future. They made engineering fun and it helped me express my creativity."
- "I thought it was enjoyable and has made me consider engineering as a future career."
- "I think that the lesson gave me a better understanding of engineering."
The main aim of our STEM Education Programme is to engage as many young learners as possible, prior to making their GCSE choices and I believe that we have been able to open more eyes to the world of opportunity that engineering presents.
For more information on the Mabey Hire STEM Education programme, click here
