HEATHROW GETS KIDS EXCITED ABOUT ENGINEERING

HEATHROW. The annual Heathrow Primary School Challenge is underway in the Boroughs surrounding the airport; Ealing, Hounslow, Hillingdon, Slough and Spelthorne.

Notes to editors

Further information about the challenge:

• The Heathrow Primary School Challenge is in its sixth year and now runs in 46 schools in the boroughs of Ealing, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Slough and Spelthorne for 10 and 11 year old students
• It aims to bring out creativity in students whilst encouraging them to explore construction and engineering programmes at the airport, and understand the sorts of things they need to learn in order to get there
• This is particularly important for two reasons:
  • Many children in the boroughs surrounding the airport will expect to work at the airport in the future but may not be aware of the full range of careers available – and the studying they will need to do to achieve those jobs. Almost half (45%) of the 76,500 people working at the airport live nearby. Therefore it is important to expose children to some of the jobs they may not know exist at the airport
  • The Royal Academy for Engineering has recently stated that engineering graduates are in short supply – this programme helps to make children aware of this career from an early age
• Pupils spend a morning or an afternoon being taught curriculum based content about 3-D shapes and the basic rules and laws of engineering. Then they are invited to put this knowledge to the test by working in teams to create their own 3-D Terminal – which 6 of them can sit inside without it collapsing. They construct the Terminals out of newspaper sticks that they make themselves
• The Challenge has been running for 6 years and last year, 2,600 children took part
• A member of staff from Heathrow airport accompanies Jeremy King – the engineer that runs the activities – at each event and explains to the children what their job is at the airport, to further expand their knowledge of different types of jobs at the airport
• The Challenge is run in partnership with the National Schools Partnership

Contact information

Name Heathrow Airport media centre
Telephone +44 (0)20 8745 7224
Email heathrowmediacentre@baa.com

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HEATHROW GETS KIDS EXCITED ABOUT ENGINEERING