SPRA Exhibits at Technology Teachers’ Association Conference.

An opportunity was taken on Saturday 5 November to publicise SPRA’s aim to support the teaching of polymeric materials in schools and to give the first public airing of the two new pop-up banners at the Scottish Technology Teachers' Association annual conference at The Mary Erskine School in Edinburgh.

 

The conference proceedings include a number of awards for pupils in subjects such as product design, CAD, graphic design, technological studies and craftsmanship. SPRA teacher member, Vince Bruce, picked up a TTA medallion as the best graduate from the BTechEd Programme at Glasgow University.

The other major feature of the conference was a keynote speech from Dr Peter Hughes, Chief Executive of Scottish Engineering who presented a very upbeat report on the achievements of the engineering sector in Scotland and pulled no punches when addressing the media’s agenda for looking for bad news and ignoring success. The engineering sector has been performing well in the last 18 months with growth in orders intake and in output volume. Apart from the electronics sector, exports are up and engineering companies in Scotland have generated 7 times the sales value of the much publicised drinks sector. However there is a real shortage of engineers and schools were asked to encourage more school leavers to consider engineering as a career. At the top end Scottish Universities attract 30% of UK research grants but companies need to work with schools to produce more round pegs for round holes. Since 2006, there has been an encouraging increase in pupils studying some STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths) but numbers for technological studies have been falling.

Dr Hughes believes that the Scottish Education system has been hampered by a succession of Education Ministers, who each feel they have to make their stamp by introducing yet more changes. Employers are uncomfortable about the new Curriculum for Excellence, where assessment details have not been fully revealed. He urged schools to work more with individual companies. His parting shots were to ask everyone to stop telling pupils that they are a failure if they don’t go to university and, on a lighter note, to keep ‘dinosaurs’ away from youngsters and to get rid of acronyms in the education system.

 

In the afternoon workshops Dr Diane Aston, Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, conducted a workshop on ‘Smart Materials’ in which she had an opportunity to display the new Materials Resource Box for schools, which contains samples of metals, plastics, rubber, textiles, composites, ceramics and wood, with accompanying learning material.

At the exhibition, SPRA members were able to promote the Polymer Study Tours, the SPRA Schools Lecture ‘Fantastic Plastic’ and the general support for the teaching of polymeric materials in schools. Although the Polymer Study Tour enjoys a great reputation among teachers and is free, thanks to sponsorship from a number of companies and organisations (including SPRA), there is a real barrier in attending because of the current financial constraints in arranging replacements while teachers are on the course.

Report by Charlie Geddes, SPRA Honorary Secretary, November 2011