DREW PRIMARY SCHOOL VISITS THAMES REFINERY

Raising the aspirations of young people in Newham through school visits

Last week Tate & Lyle Sugars hosted 50 primary school children from Drew Primary at our Thames Refinery, complementing their learning about engineering during the World of Work week at school.

We are committed to raising the aspirations of young people in Newham and host visits from local Newham primary schools in collaboration with Inspire! (formerly 15billionebp). Children can only aspire to what they know exists, and we aim to bring jobs and careers to life through a visit to our Refinery.

The focus of last week’s visit was engineering, and the children, aged eight and nine, toured our engineering workshop, control room, raw sugar store, and saw our robots in action in one of our warehouses. They met chemical, structural, computer and software engineers who gave the children an overview of their job and role at the Refinery and answered lots of questions.

They also heard from two of our engineering apprentices, George and Lochrann, about why they wanted to be engineers and what subjects to study at school for a career in engineering.

At the beginning of their visit, a poll of the children suggested only 5% wanted to be an engineer when they grew up, but after the visit the same poll found 75% wanted to be engineers.

We were delighted to have inspired the children to consider a career in engineering.