This year, thanks to the support of Heathrow’s employee volunteers, fifty schools in the five surrounding boroughs to Heathrow – Ealing, Hounslow, Hillingdon, Slough and Spelthorne - and more than 3,100 students will participate in the challenge, which will run until the 21st of October.
Students participating learn the engineering story of Heathrow’s Terminal 2 – The Queen’s Terminal – and will have the opportunity to draw up their own inspired designs for a terminal large enough to fit six of their colleagues. Students will then use a STIXX machine, an environmentally innovative system that turns newspapers into building rods, and work in groups to translate their designs into reality.
Sundeep Sangha, Heathrow’s Head of Economic Development, says: ‘Heathrow is committed to reducing skills gaps in engineering and technology and in doing so helping the local economy, as well as raising academic achievements and aspirations of young people.
The Primary School Challenge is a wonderful example of how we do this; it complements the Key Stage 2 curriculum, and improves participants’ decision making, creativity and self confidence, all skills which they can develop and use in the workplace in years to come.’
Over the years, 20,741 year 5 & 6 students have benefitted from the skills taught in the Challenge.
Heathrow’s Primary School Challenge Programme has been awarded the 2014 Malcolm Gibbons Cup in the Spark! Partnership Awards, which highlight leading examples of successful collaboration between education and the local business community.
