The first 20 Lloyd’s Register Foundation ENTHUSE Partnerships, working with 88 schools and up to 40,000 young people, are now well underway.
Lloyd’s Register Foundation has committed £300,000 towards funding 20 ENTHUSE Partnerships across the UK, to stimulate and sustain young people’s interest and enthusiasm for engineering.
Led by STEM Learning, the funding enables groups of four to eight schools/colleges to work together in “ENTHUSE Partnerships” to identify and address issues with participation and achievement in engineering and technology. Teachers and schools are being provided with expert in-school guidance, mentoring, CPD and other forms of support. 1,600 days’ worth of subject specific CPD focused on engineering and emerging technologies tailored to the individual school environment is being supplemented by networking events, conferences and an online community to share best practice, along with signposting and curation of high-quality educational resources. Each Partnership will participate in a teacher work experience placement with a local employer.
Focusing on groups of schools in unsupported communities, the Partnerships deliver a future facing and industry focused curriculum, working with local engineering and technology employers and a cohort of industry-based Engineering Champions, to create a community of teachers with cutting-edge technical and pedagogical understanding in engineering and emerging technologies, well connected to local employers within the engineering sector, who are able to deliver a quality engineering education programme.
Dr Tim Slingsby, Director of Skills and Education said: “To make the world a safer place, we believe that we need more engineers with the ability to address the global challenges of today and the future. We therefore look for mechanisms that work, and evidence they do. ENTHUSE partnerships are a proven model and, by putting engineering at the heart of these school partnerships, our aim is to help increase the number of young people choosing to pursue engineering and technological disciplines post-16.”