Engineering a growing success at Luton School

In the past five years Engineering Design has gone from strength to strength at Challney Girls School Luton and the Connolly Foundation are proud to have contributed to this growing success.

Trustee Mostque Koyes visited the school recently to talk to staff and students in the department about the growth of the subject which has now progressed to GCSE level.

Head of Department Trudie Squires explained that the electronics that they are delivering in the school would not have been possible without the funding from the Connolly Foundation which has allowed the department to buy equipment including 3D printers, laser cutters and programmable robots. She said, “Additional funding from the Connolly Foundation has been used to raise students’ awareness of plastic sustainability/environmental issues and has enabled us to purchase equipment to use in next year’s curriculum.”

Trudie joined the school in 2019 joined the school and introduced engineering into the KS3 curriculum and ensured that the curriculum in years 7,8 and 9 were good foundations for Engineering Design in KS4. In 2020 there was one class of Engineering Design students of 16 and she was the only teacher.

From this term there are three women engineering teachers and three groups of engineering girls in year 10 and 2 in year 11 from September. There are now 100 girls in KS4 studying engineering design.

“I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Challney Girls School”, said Mostaque. “It was great to see for myself the development of this important subject and how the Connolly Foundation has played its part in them providing this wonderful opportunity for pupils at the school. Well done to all involved and we look forward to its continued success.”