March 2019

Burnley engineering educator recognised in New Year’s Honours Dr Susan Scurlock, CEO and Founder of Primary Engineer and its wider programmes has been awarded an MBE in the 2019 New Year’s Honours List for services to Education and Engineering across the UK. The honour is fitting recognition for Susan’s pioneering work that is helping reshape how young people are introduced to the skills needed for a career in engineering. Commenting on the announcement, Susan said: “I’m absolutely thrilled. We’ve been on an incredible journey to this point and in the past year alone we have directly engaged nearly 60,000 children and more than 2000 teachers. Despite our rapid progress, we feel that we are very much at the start of what we can achieve, and our new Institution of Primary Engineers and Institution of Secondary Engineers have the potential to become game changers. To be awarded an MBE is a fabulous personal honour and I’d like to thank the hard work and talents of my team and so many professional associates who share my belief in the benefits of engineering skills for children and the future workforce.” Primary Engineer’s programmes range from day long teacher training courses, a Masters’ Level Postgraduate course, celebration events and an annual competition which asks the question “If you were an engineer, what would you do?”. These activities connect schools, universities and engineering organisations who all join forces to showcase that children have the creativity and inventiveness to carve out a career in one of the most rewarding careers on the planet. | PRIMARY ENGINEER | www.smartmachinesandfactories.com March 2019 | 37 | Managing Director Alan Batty, soon became a mainstream interest for Kelleher, from Maidstone. He was nominated for the Primary Engineer Rogers Knight Award by teachers at Sandling Primary School in Kent and is no stranger to getting the best out of children - at weekends he manages a local football team. He said: “I am delighted to have received this award, it was totally unexpected. I visited the school to help teachers and pupils to plan the designs of their shoebox vehicles, explaining the value of each element. The smiles on their faces were a picture when their vehicles flew down the ramp in a straight line. “The vehicles for the older pupils involved building a wooden chassis and wiring up an electric motor to drive the car up a ramp. It required more patience, but you could see a great sense of achievement in each team when it all came together. “In the Primary Engineer Kent finals both teams that represented Sandling did very well, winning several awards on the day for performance and design. I thought the program offered a great practical experience for the pupils and hopefully it will have inspired some of the them to explore engineering in the future”. Vanda Jones, executive director of BCAS commented: “With the UK’s current shortfall of qualified engineers and an ageing, skilled workforce, we have been championing the Primary Engineer Programme for many years now. It gives pupils a fantastic opportunity to work with engineers and to enable teachers to embed engineering into their learning. “It is through the passion and commitment of people like Gary that the industry is helping to encourage young people in to a future career in engineering and to plug our technology skills gap. “We can’t think of a more deserving winner and our thanks and congratulations go to Gary and to all the children involved for their enthusiasm and fresh ideas.” Chris Rochester, UK Director for Primary Engineer Programmes, creators of the awards added: “We created the Primary Engineer Rogers Knight Award to recognise annually one engineer who goes way beyond the call of duty. Gary’s commitment to the school supporting the teachers to become adept at delivering STEM projects to pupils makes him a deserving winner”. The Primary Engineer Rogers Knight Award was inspired by an engineer who lived to the age of 99. Throughout his life, Rogers inspired everyone he met. He was a President of the British Compressed Air Society (BCAS), among many other achievements, and it is they who wanted to celebrate his inspirational life. The Primary Engineer Rogers Knight Award was established in 2015, with the first award presented in November 2016. For further information please visit: www.primaryengineer.com