Engineering

Jonathan Britton, Practitioner, Director of Post-16 Education, Archbishop Holgate's School
Lisa Rowntree, Practitioner, Head of Engineering, York College
Eamonn Durkan, Practitioner, Head of Technology, Rivington and Blackrod High School

Narrator: Understanding the make up of the engineering employers in your area is an important step towards employer engagement - a fact that the comparatively large consortium in York took on board when considering the different types of approaches needed.

Jonathan Britton: You need to know what are you going to ask businesses for. How much time is that going to require of them and what are the financial implications going to be for them? And if it’s a small business, it could just be one guest speaker, for instance, per year coming in, it could be one person becoming a mentor. With larger businesses then obviously you can ask for more. You can ask for maybe more mentors, you could ask for them to take internships to take students on longer work placements.

Lisa Rowntree: Larger companies struggle with time and they tend to have to pass everything through HR, and decision making processes are longer with larger companies. But the actual experience itself, large to small, both of them are invaluable for the young person. With a smaller company the problems we find there, is sometimes the work isn’t consistent. They may be getting some deliveries or a project comes in that the young person can work on, and then it might go quiet for a couple of days with the smaller employers. So there are positives and negatives to both really. But I think a young person needs to experience a range of different organisations.

Narrator: In Bolton, they've found that by using a number of smaller companies, it can offer as many opportunities as working with just one large one.

Eamonn Durkan: You have the large industries like MBDA, but you also have an enormous amount of small medium-sized enterprises. And those are the firms that we’re tapping into, the small medium-sized enterprises. And that’s where a lot of exciting engineering is actually happening. So we’ve found that some of our contacts - one's a contact who produces parts for the rally industry. That’s a fantastic wow factor to any curriculum. You’re talking about world rally cars, you’re talking about speed, you’re talking about aerodynamics, you’re talking about success, and winning, and it’s part of the learning environment that we want to bring into the classroom.

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