Monday, April 13, 2015

SABIC host successful Children Challenging Industry visits for 12 years!

Kirklevington Primary School at SABIC

Kirklevington Primary School visited SABIC on 5th March and met Janet Jones who was hosting the visit. Janet loves inspiring young people. As a female worker in Industry, she feels it is important to empower girls to realise that working in industry is as accessible to them as it is to boys.

Janet Jones said, “The CCI programme offers primary children the opportunity to see our industry first hand.  The children ask fantastic questions and I am amazed at how quickly the time goes when they are with us.  I like to think that during their visit we inspire them to consider working in our industry, even though that decision is a long way off.”

The programme is so well developed now that it is literally ‘off the shelf’. Take a box out, check the equipment and use it - simplicity with minimum preparation. Janet recruited Joanna Bartlett, a Process Engineer, to assist with this visit - she is young, enthusiastic, female and has a Chemical Engineering Masters to her name! Janet has worked for the company for 31 years and she always presents to the children in a fun, relaxed ‘I really enjoy this job’ kind of way. This is exactly what we need to encourage the children to take more interest in Science. The local paper turned up and Janet took it in her stride, smiling through her ‘child friendly’ introduction to the company and sparking up interest without boring them with too much detail. The children quickly became engaged with the activities and had a tour around the site allowing them to see for themselves what it is like.
Enjoying one of the activities

The teachers, Mrs Johnstone and Mr Morgan said “The Children Challenging Industry sessions and the visit to SABIC were extremely enjoyable for both the children and the staff. The trip to SABIC opened the eyes of the children to science in the real world and inspired them by showing them how to be more investigative in their thought processes.
We would like to say a big thank you to SABIC for their continuous support and contributions to the project.”

By Jenny Harvey, CIEC Advisory Teacher in the North East

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