During an Academy session, we caught up with Fatima Amara, a Lead Control and Protection Engineer at GE Vernova, who volunteered her time to support students as they developed ideas, worked through challenges, and built confidence in presenting their thinking. We asked Fatima why programmes like this matter and what volunteering means to her.
The Inspirational Learning Group (TILG) has marked another hugely successful year of its Next Engineers Summer Camp, welcoming over 100 aspiring young engineers to the Octagon Events Centre at Stafford Education and Enterprise Park.
On the 25th of June, after spending a total of 220 hours outside of school learning to think like engineers, Cohort 2 of the Engineering Academy graduated!
“It was super rewarding to bring a group of people from just an idea they had in their head to actually creating and pitching a product,” says Eoin about his experience mentoring Next Engineers students
Following the success of 2023 and 2024, The Inspirational Learning Group is delighted to announce that the Next Engineers: Staffordshire Engineering Experience is back for 2025 and applications are now open!
It’s been 3 months since our first Academy graduates began the next steps in their career progression ladder and we are so proud of each and every one of them.
From Mechanical Engineering Degrees at university, to Civil Engineering apprenticeships, to taking a gap year to travel the world (!), our “builders of tomorrow” are going on to achieve remarkable things.
We were delighted to welcome back our Academy students to Stafford last month for an action-packed couple of days.
During the school’s half–term, Students from Cohort’s 2 and 3 were back on-site in October with The Inspirational Learning Group and volunteer graduates from General Electric Vernova developing their skills and knowledge as aspiring engineers of the future! After ice-breaker activities, our young people were put through their paces with our team.
Back in September, representatives from The Inspirational Learning Group were invited to collaborate with other global partners, as part of the Next Engineers Community Partners meeting in Washington DC.
TILG Project Manager, Paul Dyer was joined by Head of Curriculum, Education & Quality, Rebecca Clarke and Trainee Accountant Carla Thomas, which saw them meeting with the teams from the other three global locations, Johannesburg - South Africa and Cincinnati and Greenville representing North America.
It’s all hands on deck at The Inspirational Learning Group as we prepare for a busy summer of Next Engineers activity. In addition to welcoming 100 young aspiring engineers as part of our Experience weeks, we are also working hard in final preparations for the graduation event for our fantastic Cohort 1 Academy students!
In advance of their graduation on Thursday 1st August, we asked the Cohort to reflect on their 3 years with the Next Engineers Academy and share their experiences and future plans with us.
On Thursday 1st August, our fantastic Cohort 1 students were joined by family, friends and representatives of Next Engineers and The Inspirational Learning Group who watched on as our aspiring engineers graduated from the Engineering Academy at Uttoxeter Racecourse.
Back in January, 44 young people from all areas in Staffordshire came together for the first time with a shared goal: to take part in a 3-year transformative learning experience, learning how to think and act like engineers. As we approach the end of the UK academic year, we caught up with our Cohort 3 aspiring engineers and asked them to reflect on their experiences during their first year of the Next Engineers: Engineering Academy.
