At Performance Engineered Solutions Ltd (PES) We’d like to congratulate the new UTC Sheffield (University Technical College) on its opening this week.
UTC Sheffield will combine traditional academic teaching with specialised technical education in advanced engineering and manufacturing and the creative and digital industries, in order to make the students ready for the world of work.
As engineers at PES we work with the latest technology, in a clean office environment, with supercomputers and the latest equipment to develop our clients’ products. It’s all very high tech, with lots of innovation.
We are however finding that many of the graduate engineers and young engineers currently coming out of education lack the practical skills & the ability to apply the knowledge they’ve learnt.
Whilst students at the UTC, aged 14 to 19 will study an academic curriculum – GCSEs and A Levels – alongside their specialist courses, the main difference is that all academic learning will relate to employer-led projects, and students will gain the skills and qualifications they need to open up opportunities for jobs and university courses in their specialist subjects.
The facility combines classrooms with a scaled-down factory production line, robotic equipment and state-of-the-art recording studios for the UTC’s two specialisms.
Dan Fleetcroft, engineering design director comments; “We believe that the UTC will provide a much more hands-on approach to engineering, where students will learn both the skills and how to apply them in real world situations. Students like this will help make a massive difference to our business. We will be working with the UTC by discussing Design Engineering with the students and also setting them a number of engineering design projects during the year.
“We’re looking to bring on young engineers and to develop them within the company but we’ll also require the higher level knowledge-based skills that universities will provide. We anticipate taking on a mix of students coming through places like the UTC as well as graduate engineers from university.
“With prospects for engineering in the UK looking strong for the foreseeable future the UTC Sheffield is set to play a key role in providing the future workforce to help drive forward the region’s advanced manufacturing economy.”
PES and over 40 other employers from both the advanced engineering and manufacturing, and the creative and digital media industries sectors, are backing the UTC in a range of ways. This includes providing sponsorship and work placements, and shaping the curriculum by setting industry-based projects.
Key supporters include Siemens, Newburgh Engineering, Rolls-Royce, Sheffield Forgemasters, Tata Steel, Sheffield University’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre with Boeing, Performance Engineered Solutions, Team Cooper Games, Warp Films, Edumake technology, Resolve IT and Visionmix..
The new school is run by the UTC Sheffield Academy Trust. The UTC has been sponsored and led by Sheffield College with Sheffield Hallam University and the Sheffield Chamber of Commerce and Industry as co-sponsors.
