Primary Engineer, the organisation which inspires children, pupils and teachers to consider engineering through continued professional development, whole class project work, competitions and exhibitions has partnered with the Engineering Professors’ Council – the voice of engineering in the UK.
The partnership brings together two major forces in the sector and will further bond education and commerce with a view to promoting the skills related to engineering and shoring up the provision of engineers of the future.
Dr Susan Scurlock, Chief executive and founder of Primary Engineer said: “This partnership will bring together two ends of the engineering pipeline, beginning with Early Years Engineer in pre-school, through Primary Engineer and Secondary Engineer and onto university education. We are delighted to be working with the Engineering Professors’ Council to see this end-to-end vision have a real impact on the numbers of engineers finding careers in UK industries’.”
Primary Engineer Programmes showcase how working with pupils as young at 3 years old can help to nurture latent STEM skills and encourage children to understand not only the impact that engineering can have on the world but what engineering is! This is demonstrated by the Primary Engineer and Secondary Engineer Leaders’ Awards which asks children: “If you were an engineer what would you do?”
Primary Engineer exemplifies a ‘STEM by Stealth’ educational approach to bring engineering and engineers into primary classrooms and curricula. It inspires children, pupils and teachers through continued professional development, whole class project work, competitions and exhibitions.
The partnership has been forged during the Government’s Year of Engineering, which is committed to boosting engineering across the UK, ensuring everyone has the skills needed to thrive in a modern economy. In the last academic year, the programme, which encourages children to think of a problem and design a solution to it, received 37,000 entries from around the UK. In partnership with engineering firms and university departments, which encouraged their engineers to visit schools to be interviewed and later to grade the entries.
On behalf of the Engineering Professors’ Council, Chief Executive Johnny Rich said: “The EPC sometimes chooses to forge a formal partnership with select organisations that share our goals and interests. We are impressed by the way that the Primary Engineer and Secondary Engineer Leaders’ Awards link universities to children and communities to industry on a scale that has not been seen before.”
You can find out more by visiting www.primaryengineer.com
