news archive

November 2005

Halcrow encourages students into engineering

On Wednesday 2 November, Halcrow hosted a day workshop to highlight engineering as a career choice to 35 A’ level students and staff from St John's School, Marlborough.

The students involved are studying for their A’ levels in geography, physics, environmental science and mathematics. The workshop was developed with their teachers to fit with the curriculum in these subjects. The workshop was constructed around the theme of dams and reservoirs.

During the day there were three workshops running in parallel and a final session that bought the students back together to work on a case study. The focus was on flood engineering, a subject encouraged by the Environment Agency.

The aim of the event was to demonstrate engineering as a career that covers a wide spectrum of skills and introduce Halcrow as a potential employer of choice.

"Our aim was to encourage these students to consider engineering as a career where they could make a practical difference to their environment and fulfil their potential”, said Barbara May, training manager. “Halcrow is very proud of its Investors in People status and runs comprehensive training programmes for all levels of staff. We'd like the students to consider us first when the time comes for them to make career choices."

"As an ex-St John's School pupil I am pleased to be developing the partnership between Halcrow and the school” said Paul Robinson, water resources engineer, School Liaison Link. “In the workshop we introduced students to engineering and used our work in water management to build on the subjects in their A’ level curriculum. Through the partnership we aim to increase the number of students who chose courses that will enable them to enter a broad spectrum of engineering and technical careers. It’s through initiatives like this that our industry can address the great need for dedicated engineers, technical specialists and technicians both in the UK and abroad."

The students responded well to the day and the workshop opened their eyes to a whole new career choice they hadn’t thought of previously. St Johns student Catherine Hartley, 16, said “This morning we had presentations and workshops which were really interesting. I really enjoyed looking at the sedimentation tank. It feels like I’ve taken in loads of information today. I hope to go to university to study geography, but I hadn’t really considered engineering before today, it’s just not a job I had thought of.”

Jack Rendle, 15, said “I am going to go to university to study engineering.”

Richard Turner, 17, said “It’s been a really interesting day. We’ve learnt all about dams and reservoirs and learnt from engineers what they actually do. I’d like to go to University but I’m going to wait for my A level results before I decide on anything. Today has certainly opened my eyes to this side of engineering, I didn’t realise how complicated it was. Today has been really useful”.

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