£22m JCB Academy opens for students
THE UK’s first academy dedicated to engineering has been opened in Staffordshire. The £22m JCB Academy at Rocester is home to 120 pupils and aims to provide future generations of engineers and business leaders.
The school was conceived four years ago by JCB chairman Sir Anthony Bamford, who donated the Grade II listed Arkwright Mill to house the new facility.
The Year 10 students being taught at the academy will study a specially-designed curriculum aimed at developing engineering skills and promoting the engineering industry in general.
Sir Anthony said: “I am passionate about engineering and committed to British manufacturing but we need the right calibre of young people to ensure that we continue to be a nation that makes things in an innovative way.
“The JCB Academy is one small step to helping achieve that aim. The facilities here are second-to-none and offer the students the opportunity to learn about manufacturing and engineering in a way that is exciting and practical and aligned to the needs of employers when they qualify in a few years time.”
The academy has been equipped with modern engineering equipment worth in excess of £1m. The equipment includes the only plasma cutter – a machine tool commonly used in industry – to be based in a UK school.
The engineering tasks completed by pupils have been set by The JCB Academy’s partners which include JCB, Rolls Royce, Toyota, Network Rail, Bentley, Bombardier, Rexroth Bosch Group, National Grid, Zytek Automotive, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, IET, Harper Adams University College, The Royal Academy of Engineering and Parker Vansco. Students will complete their engineering tasks alongside Maths, English, Science and German GCSEs.
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Like other state schools, the academy is funded by the Department for Education, but as main sponsor JCB contributed 10% of the capital as well as donating the building.
As well as delivering a high-class learning environment, The JCB Academy is also designed to be highly energy efficient and it has installed an Archimedes Screw which will generate around 80% of the power for the site. Rain water is also harvested for recycling.
In keeping with the modern environment, the academy is also deploying finger recognition technology using biometric information. This enables pupils to register their daily attendance, pay for their lunch and even sign on to their laptops with the swipe of a finger. The JCB Academy also boasts a 3D room where pupils don glasses and see 3D colour animations of the projects they are designing. Every pupil will also get a laptop, which they are able to keep once they leave the school.
JCB Academy Principal Jim Wade said: “We have the very best of facilities here geared to educating our young people to a level that gives them the employability skills they – and British manufacturing – need when they leave.”
