Inspiring a new generation

11/01/2017
  • Categories: 
  • London Highways Alliance
Inspiring a new generation

Civil Engineers from our LoHAC contract recently supported TeenTech’s event in London.

TeenTech is a charity founded by TV’s Maggie Philbin which engages with young teenagers to help them see the wide range of career possibilities in Science, Engineering and Technology. By the end of primary school, most girls are not looking at STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) subjects and TeenTech tries to change that by showing all students that there are amazing opportunities and experiences in science, technology and engineering.

Held at the Emirates Stadium in Islington, over 1000 school pupils attended the two day event. Critical to the event is the use of ambassadors from industry, who throughout the days engage with the pupils and give a real insight into what they do and promote themselves as role models. Three of our fantastically enthusiastic female engineers, two skilled operatives and our Contract Manager represented Ringway Jacobs and were the face of civil engineering for the day.

Along with the vital ambassadorial role Ringway Jacobs performed, we set a 30 minute challenge as part of the ‘Challenge Zone’ which saw 120 children, in groups of 10, pit their engineering wits against an engineering task to build a bridge that they would walk over at the end of the exercise.

The exercise was a great success and at a time when women are being encouraged to join the industry, the feedback from the event was very reassuring.  When asked on arrival if they were interested in a career in engineering only 41% of the year 8&9 girls said yes; at the end of the day when asked again this went up to 62%, an increase of 21%. The same question about science had a 20% increase for the girls and when asked about careers in technology there was a 16% increase from a starting point of 65%.

Ringway Jacobs’ LoHAC Contract Manager said: “No matter how often I engage with young people, they never fail to amaze me, the day showed how we can make a difference and working with Teentech made our input so much more effective. On the back of this, we have committed to work with Teentech to interview and appoint apprentices in their schools before they sit their GCSEs and we are looking to increase our ambassadorial role in local schools in conjunction with Teentech.” 

Ringway Jacobs Logo

Want to join us?

Careers

Ringway Jacobs Logo

Want to do business with us?

Contact us