Youngsters show plenty of talent to Hyde

Oct. 18, 2010 - PRLog -- At the recent Hyde Group Make It in Aerospace Enterprising Schools Challenge held in Dukinfield Town Hall, teams of 13 and 14 year-old boys and girls from 13 Greater Manchester schools proved they have what it takes to Make It in the future.

The teams set about establishing their mini-manufacturing businesses with enthusiasm, choosing job roles, customer groups and then creating, marketing and selling their multi-functional, unmanned rescue vehicles to a team of ‘Dragons’ from the Hyde Group, along with special guest ‘Dragon’, Councillor Kieran Quinn, Executive Leader of Tameside Council.

In a closely-contested heat, Longdendale Community Language College of Hollingworth, Hyde took the winning trophy with their ‘All Terrain Ambulance’. Designed with tank treads to negotiate all territories, room for ten injured personnel and an in-built operating theatre for emergencies, their presentation impressed the Dragons and secured their place in the regional Make It in Aerospace Challenge final next summer. One member of the Longdendale team – Valentin Samuel – also won a prize for ‘Most Enthusiastic’ individual.

Reddish Vale Technology College of Stockport were awarded second place and also had an individual prize winner on their team – Louis Bisset – who received an award from the Dragons for ‘Most Innovative Idea’ for his ‘Wildcat 16X’ creation.

The Tameside based Hyde Group are more used to creating world-class airframes and aero engine components, and engineering and tooling for global corporations such as Rolls Royce, Airbus and BAE Systems, than playing Dragons. However, as Matthew Murray, Human Resources Director explained: “We were delighted to sponsor the Make It event again this year because we believe it is important to engage young people and dispel the misconceptions they have about careers in engineering and manufacturing.

“Our cutting-edge business requires people with high level skills and so we need to attract the brightest and best talent. Events such as this go a long way towards achieving this goal”.

Before becoming Executive Leader, Councillor Kieran Quinn was previously Head of Economic Development for the area and so understands how critical a strong manufacturing base is for economic growth. He said: “If we can use this type of approach to inspire young people to consider careers in manufacturing and engineering then the future for high value sectors such as aerospace will be more secure and Tameside and ‘UK plc’ will be able to compete globally”.

Nicola Eagleton-Crowther, Make It Campaign Manager at The Manufacturing Institute added: “Today’s event has been extremely successful in highlighting the future career opportunities that the aerospace sector – which employs almost 50,000 people here in the North West - can offer young people. At the start of the day only 25% of the youngsters said they would consider a career in manufacturing yet this rose to 63% by the end. We still have a long way to go to improve the image of manufacturing here in the UK but days such as these are an excellent start”.

The event was a collaboration between The Manufacturing Institute, the Hyde Group and the North West Aerospace Alliance (NWAA) and is part of a special series of aerospace themed Make It challenges which the NWAA are supporting to encourage young people to consider careers in aerospace.  Rachel Brickell, NWAA Skills and Training Manger commented that “Meeting and engaging with school children of this age group is an ideal way to begin to change the image of aerospace and engineering as an exciting  possible career opportunity, we look forward to working with other schools and companies taking part in future challenges.”


ENDS

Media information:  Edward Moss: 0161 875 2642, mobile: 07794 192677, ed.moss@manufacturinginstitute.co.uk


Notes to Editors

The schools taking part in the Hyde Group heat held at the Dukinfield Town Hall were:

   Name   Area
1.      Alder Community High School,   Hyde
2.      Hyde Technology School,   Hyde
3.      Longdendale Community Language College, Hyde
4.      Manchester Academy, Manchester
5.      New Charter Academy,  Ashton-under-Lyne
6.      Priestnall School, Stockport
7.      Reddish Vale Technology College,   Stockport
8.      St Matthews RC High School, Manchester
9.      St Thomas More RC College, Denton
10.      The Hathershaw College of Technology & Sport, Oldham
11.      The Radclyffe School,   Oldham
12.      West Hill School,   Stalybridge
13.      Copley High School,   Stalybridge

1.   The Make It in Manufacturing campaign was launched by The Manufacturing Institute in 2006 to shake off the myths and negative perceptions that surround the sector and show the outside world, particularly tomorrow's workforce and potential investors, just how much modern manufacturing has to offer.

2.   The Manufacturing Institute (www.manufacturinginstitute.co.uk) is an independent charity - driven by manufacturers for manufacturers. For 15 years The Manufacturing Institute has helped transform manufacturing performance, working with over 4000 companies to help them gain competitive advantage from high impact skills building and productivity improvement programmes.

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