Leamington Spa, 11th July 2011: – From 4th to 8th July, 14 and 15 year old students from across the UK enjoyed a unique work experience course at the National Grid Training Centre near Newark, Nottinghamshire.
Run in conjunction with the UK’s largest utility company, National Grid, this residential learning opportunity gave 50 students an insight into the future of energy and the industry as a whole. Over the five days, the lucky students worked with real engineers from National Grid to see first-hand how the supply of energy works. This included learning about the anatomy of the nation’s energy networks and taking a close up view of high-voltage substations, lines and cables.
Students also explored the scale of the ‘hardware’ used to keep our lights on and our gas flowing. This included a tour round a major power station to find out how electricity is generated and a visit to a gas compressor site to develop a deeper knowledge of how gas is moved around in volume.
Social activities included a film evening and a bowling night. On the final night, The Smallpeice Trust and National Grid hosted a conference style dinner, attended by Jon Butterworth, Group Director of Safety, Sustainability and Resilience at National Grid. Students and supervisors heard Jon speak about his career based on engineering, and had the opportunity to socialise and share their experiences of the week.
Richard Earp, National Grid’s education and skills manager said, “We are delighted to have been able to offer this week in partnership with The Smallpeice Trust. This is an inspirational approach to work experience and one we are developing further each academic year. As a major engineering employer we recognise our responsibility to help young people understand both where their science, maths and technology studies could lead them. By harnessing our own technical resources, The Smallpeice Trust’s experience of running residential courses schools, and the expertise of the Royal Academy of Engineering who helped develop the week, we believe we are setting new standards in the provision of work-based learning for schools students.”
Gemma Murphy, Head of Marketing and Development for The Smallpeice Trust commented, “This is the second residential course that we have run this academic year with National Grid. Thanks to their generosity, we were able to give students a worthwhile opportunity to explore the diverse range of careers in this fast-paced sector. Over the past few days, we hope to have encouraged students to go on to consider playing a part in tackling climate change and energy supply issues in the future.”
The National Grid Work Experience Week is run by National Grid in partnership with the independent charity, The Smallpeice Trust, and is part of an ongoing programme of residential courses to help young people aged 13 to 18 learn and develop skills in engineering, design, technology and manufacturing. Through running residential courses and STEM enrichment days, The Trust has reached out to 17,677 students across the UK in the past year.
The new course timetable for 2012 will be launched in the autumn school term. Places are allocated on a first come, first served basis. To find out more, visit www.smallpeicetrust.org.uk, or telephone The Smallpeice Trust on 01926 333200.
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About The Smallpeice Trust:
The Smallpeice Trust is an independent charitable trust which promotes engineering as a career, primarily through the provision of residential courses for young people aged 13 to 18.
The Smallpeice Trust was founded in 1966 by Dr Cosby Smallpeice, a pioneering engineer and inventor of the Smallpeice Lathe. Following the stock market flotation of his company Martonair, Dr Smallpeice invested his energy and part of his personal fortune to set up the Trust to ensure that British industry could continuously benefit from his proven design and engineering philosophies: “Simplicity in design, economy in production.”
The Trust is now governed by an eminent board of non-executive trustees and members from a diverse range of engineering, industry, educational and professional bodies. In 2009/10, The Smallpeice Trust ran 30 residential courses for 1,700 school-aged students at universities across the country, with girls accounting for 38%. In addition, 15,977 students attended a Smallpeice in-school STEM masterclass. For more information, visit www.smallpeicetrust.org.uk.
About National Grid:
National Grid is an international electricity and gas company and one of the largest investor-owned energy companies in the world.
National Grid owns the high-voltage electricity transmission network in England and Wales and operates the system across Great Britain. It also owns and operates the high pressure gas transmission system in Britain and its distribution business delivers gas to 11 million homes and businesses. National Grid also has a number of related businesses such as LNG importation and storage, land remediation and metering.
Contacts:
Isobel Rowley, Press Officer on 01926 655275 or [email protected]
