Primary Engineer Event at Howden | Howden are delighted to partner with Primary Engineer and welcomed Primary 6 and Primary 7 pupils from St Mary’s & St Peter’s Primary School to Renfrew site.

In September, Howden signed a national partnership with PRIMARY ENGINEER^® to bring engineering into classrooms across Scotland. This new partnership is only one of two in the Scottish region, which will play an important role to link schools into industry partners.

Earlier this month, the Howden Renfrew site hosted the first event in collaboration with Primary Engineer, where they welcomed over 70 pupils from St Mary’s & St Peter’s Primary School for interactive half day sessions. The events took place on 26^th October and 2^nd November and formed part PRIMARY ENGINEER^® “If you were an Engineer, what would you do?’ competition. The purpose of these sessions were to give pupils a better understanding of the engineering world, the opportunities within the sector, identify a problem then create a drawn and annotated solution in response to the question, ‘If you were an engineer, what would you do?’

This yearly competition sees tens of thousands of young people identify problems – large and small – and design solutions to solve them. At each session, the pupils received a motivational career talk from members of the executive committee including Howden CEO Ross B. Shuster, Amit Bhargava and Emma Cunningham.

Thereafter, the pupils went on a factory tour in our centre of excellence for compressor technology and took part in an afternoon activity session to work on their own submissions for the competition.  

We were delighted welcome over 70 pupils to our first onsite event in our Renfrew facility. Becoming a national partner with Primary Engineer earlier this year has given us the ability to widen our reach to other schools across the West of Scotland. This competition and programme aims provides an exciting, fun and engaging way for pupils to learn more about STEM subjects. Howden are committed to developing relationships with the local schools to encourage them to explore Engineering and STEM careers paths. We believe this can unlock a long and successful future for school leavers.

Notes:

Primary Engineer is a not-for-profit organisation who have an educational approach to bringing engineering and engineers into primary and secondary classrooms and curricula. The programme aims to inspire children, pupils and teachers through continued professional development, whole class project work, competitions and exhibitions.

The Primary Engineer Leaders Award competition is a fully funded competition open to all schools across the UK, engaging pupils aged 3-19. The competition, which began in Scotland 10 years ago, links schools with inspirational engineering companies and asks pupils the question “If you were an engineer, what would you do?”. The initiative encourages pupils to identify problems in the world around them and come up with creative solutions, embedding within them that innovative problem solving is a key part of being an engineer.

Early next year, all submitted entries will be reviewed and graded by the industry STEM Ambassadors. In April next year, shortlisted ideas will be displayed at an exhibition in the University of Strathclyde.