www.engineeringdiploma.com

NORTH TYNESIDE

Getting the right blend

puts the theory they have learned at college into context.” Practical hands-on activities are also

offered to students on-site. One exercise involved students taking apart bicycles to see the engineering behind them, and then putting them back together again, which fulfilled aspects of a unit on maintenance. In due course, engineering students will be

joining their peers on other lines of Diploma learning on the redevelopment of an under- used council building into a learning and business centre for Diploma delivery. Together with students from the Diploma

in Construction and the Built Environment, they will help with the redesign and reconstruction of the outside of the building. Students are excited about turning this fairly run-down building into a lively centre of learning and hopefully a profitable business. No Diploma programme would be effective

without someone to lead the course and take the initiative, however, and Mick Burton, TyneMet College’s head of engineering, said this role was being ably fulfilled by Mr Eiles. “Gary is the Diploma in Engineering,

and has embraced it whole-heartedly,” he explained. “He works closely with the Education Business Partnership and the local authority’s 14 to 19 Diploma co-ordinator to offer his students a wide range of exciting opportunities and many off-site visits to factories and plants. “When some of the students feared that the Diploma was not for them, he and his staff smoothed things over and organised activities to try to engage them. He always tries to encourage a positive outcome. “Staff deliver exciting, fast-paced lessons

using state-of-the-art IT to enhance progress of learning.

Meeting local needs: David Baldwin (left) and Jo Lyons from the North Tyneside Consortium collect their National Delivering Diplomas award from the QCDA’s Alan Clamp at the gala ceremony in London

“The work-related learning he organises

links closely to the syllabus and offers his learners not only an insight into how different skills are used in today’s world of work, but motivational talks and visits inform them of current recruitment policy, such as what our young people should expect from employers and what is expected of them. “We know that some students thought

the Diploma was about bashing hammers about, but we believe we are correcting that impression and they know it is quite an academic subject.”

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