Graduating Year 13 students from UTC South Durham in Newton Aycliffe are celebrating exam results and getting ready to begin their careers at multinational companies such as BMW, Nissan and Gardner Aerospace as well as leading local companies like PSP Architectural.
Tom Dower, Principal at UTC South Durham, said “We are extremely proud of our students at the UTC particularly with the challenging times they have faced over the last couple of years. Destinations continue to be positive for students entering into an Engineering sector with apprenticeship success and many students going to university.”
Three students who have been offered engineering roles within multinational companies are Andrew Hagan, Evan Dawes and William Tweddle.
Andrew was offered a degree level apprenticeship with BMW Group, having moved to live alone in Bishop Auckland at the age of 16 in order to follow his passion of engineering and study at UTC. Andrew was one of over 400 applicants who applied for the role but ultimately came away successful, with his experiences at UTC giving him the edge over other applicants. One of those experiences being, programming a pneumatic robot arm to assemble a pen at a charity dinner held at UTC South Durham.
After studying Physics and Electric and Electrical Engineering, Evan secured a machining apprenticeship at Gardner Aerospace. To compliment his academic understanding Evan gained industry experience by working with Industrial Technology Systems in Year 12 and continued to improve his employability by working in a car garage and restoring a vintage BMW E23. William was offered a Level 3 Maintenance Apprenticeship with Nissan, having achieved exams success in Electronic and Electrical Engineering and IT.
Many other students are going to University to study STEM related degrees. Dominic Ricketts, Ghusnah Almulhem and Rebecca Stout are going to founding partner Sunderland University to study Engineering and Cyber Security, Lewis Hind has accepted a place at Leeds University to study Mechatronics and Robotics and Harry Wilson has accepted a place at York University to study Product Design.
UTC South Durham is a unique school and Sixth Form based in Newton Aycliffe which specialises in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths. Students at UTC South Durham work closely with companies to develop their professional and career experiences as well as their academic and technical understanding.
Students at Sixth Form can study from a range of Level 2 and 3 courses and to coincide with the launch of Engineering T-Levels, UTC South Durham is building a £1.1 million engineering annex in Summer 2023. We still have 6th Form places available for September 2022 – enrol now on www.utcsouthdurham.org – For further information about UTC South Durham and students, please contact Tom Dower on office@utcsouthdurham.org or 01325 430 250.