Gloucestershire-based Renishaw (www.renishaw.com) is celebrating a successful year for its education outreach partnership with Radyr Comprehensive School, which is near the engineering company’s South Wales facility at Miskin.

Students from the school have been using Renishaw’s Fabrication Development Centre (FDC) as part of their product design lessons; following a successful first year, the school has now taken on its largest ever cohort of product design students.

The FDC is a resource that schools or groups can use for free for lessons or workshops; the aim is to develop engineering talent in Welsh schools, in order to secure a strong pool of engineers for the future.

The FDC is staffed by a qualified teacher and STEM-trained Renishaw ambassadors; it is equipped with ‘state of the art’ equipment, including 3-D printers.

From September 2016, pupils from Radyr Comprehensive School’s Year Nine GCSE class and Year Twelve A-level class have made regular visits to Renishaw as part of their product design lessons.

Simon Biggs, Renishaw’s education outreach officer, said: “The projects the students worked on were specifically tailored so that the students were able to find a clear link between the school curriculum and its industrial applications.

"This can be a key step in overcoming the stereotypes and opening young people’s eyes to what a career in engineering actually involves.”

Richard Jenkins, assistant head teacher at Radyr Comprehensive School, said: “Last year, every Radyr Comprehensive School student who used the FDC passed product design. What’s more, the buzz created by using the latest technology has definitely travelled around the school — we have just taken on the largest ever cohort of product design students.”