Formula
Sun
Our Launch of this exciting new project took
place on January 12th 2010 at the London International
Boat Show.
 Along
with partners; The Lloyds Register Educational
Trust. The British Marine Federation and Techsoft
UK were schools who managed to brave the atrocious
weather conditions to be there. Starting with
a presentation by Rob Austin from the main stage,
there followed an interview style chat with students
and a teacher from last year's South East Schools
Marine Challenge winners; The Leigh Technology
Academy demonstrating their expertise and skills
to their audience. Their teacher, Steve Leahey
was keen to stress the positive impact of Schools
Marine Challenge on his school as a whole in terms
of curriculum, improved results, higher interest
levels of students in Engineering, Maths and Technology.
He added, "It's been a great opportunity
for us to shop window what we do, and our results
have improved in many areas."
One year 11 student, Connor, explained what he
personally had got from his involvement, "I
get to spend a lot more time in the workshops
doing fibre glass moulds from scratch, vacuum
forming, and it's a lot of fun. Andy Simms of
Cooney Marine was also on stage to give his support.
When asked how important such schemes were for
the Marine Industry in this country, he could
not have been clearer; "Training and  development
is critical for the Industry's future' not just
the boats, but the whole infra-structure including
equipment for the leisure boat industry and clothes
etc.
According to Andy, it is one of the country?s
fastest growing industries, generating an income
in excess of three billion a year. Rob wondered
about the importance of taking on apprentices.
"It's critical," said Andy, "We
recognised this 10 years ago and accelerated our
Apprenticeship Scheme. We have to invest by training
people ourselves if we want them up to a certain
standard."
From the Main Stage, schools were chaperoned
to the Deck Games area, where they saw the various
boats running on the test tank; again being demonstrated
by The Leigh Academy. From 12 noon onwards, schools
and students were free to have a leisurely look
around the Boat Show for the rest of the day,
if they chose to. The stands were many and varied
with a chance to get involved with some ?hands-on?
activities too.
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do so as soon as possible!
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Schools Marine Challenge is on the brink
of changing...
We have been working with potential funding bodies
to secure the future of this valuable scheme,
and are delighted to report that we have core
funding confirmed from a range of supporters,
with our long-time funder the Lloyds Register
Educational Trust (LRET) as the leading body,
to take the SMC into the future. The LRET supports
a number of the top UK schemes, of which we are
one, encouraging young people to get hands-on
with engineering and science
The scheme will retain its values of requiring
schools develop suitable boats as well as the
infrastructure of research, design, funding and
marketing to get there, but it will now concentrate
on the 'solar' class.
Over time the solar challenge has become the
most widely adopted class as we have tailored
it to fit the engineering curriculum requirements
enabling both individual projects and team delivery
to take place side by side. This gives considerable
scope for a context when pupils carry out work
that requires them to engage with employers as
part of their course, finding out about both technical
and developmental aspects of working in industry.
The size of these craft means that all schools
can build test tanks and have the freedom to demonstrate
without having the logistical problems of going
to lakes etc. It will also enable the BMF to host
the national Race Day events at either the London
or Southampton boat shows!
This process is planned to start at the next
London show where we intend to launch the scheme
to schools not only from the south, but from anywhere
in the country. Come to that we already have interest
from France and Hong Kong!
We will advise you of our plans for both the
launch and subsequent delivery of the scheme when
final decisions have been made. In the meantime
if you would like to get involved please contact
the project leader Rob Austin at info@schoolsmarine.com
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