Shared County Derry campus launches engineering course

From September, two County Derry schools will be joining forces to offer students the opportunity to study engineering at their new £11 million technology facilities.

Limavady High School and neighbouring St Mary’s will be partnering with industry to support the new qualification by launching a practical mentoring programme which will structure lessons around real-life examples of how engineers work and how they develop products.

In the cross-community launch event on Thursday, students from Year 10 were introduced to engineering at the schools’ joint building where Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (or STEM subjects for short) will be taught.

Students had the opportunity to investigate some of the detailed engineering that is developed for Heavy Goods Vehicles and to talk to some of the engineers from Sensata Technologies that develop them. 

Nathanael Murphy, Application Design Manager at Sensata Technologies, explains: “At Sensata, we develop sensor products that are used in the automotive and Heavy Goods Vehicle industries to make them safer. We do this by monitoring the tyre pressure which in turn can alert the driver or fleet managers if there is a problem.”

“Like many engineering companies, we manufacture products that are used every day to make our lives easier or safer and yet most people never notice them unless there is a problem!

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"We wanted to get involved with this initiative to open young peoples’ eyes and minds to the opportunities that engineering presents and lift the bonnet – literally – on what it could do for them.”

Mr D Mornin, Principal of Limavady High School, has been one of the driving forces behind the introduction of an Engineering GCSE.

“We want to inspire and prepare our students for the future and when we look at the job opportunities available in Northern Ireland at present, we know that there are real career prospects with this qualification,” he said.

“Students will be required to study mechanical, software and process engineering and we are lucky to be partnering with a local company like Sensata Technologies which builds all of these disciplines into its products.

"It is also valuable for students to see that products designed, engineered and manufactured in Northern Ireland are exported throughout the world.”

The multi-million pound Shared STEM facilities which have been built on Irish Green St, Limavady, provide easy access for both schools and a modern and practical building for teaching practical subjects like engineering.

Speaking about the facilities, Mrs R Moore, Principal at St Mary’s Limavady, said: “We have been working together for many years to offer our students improved facilities and are delighted to be opening the building soon.

"This new space offers our students the opportunity to learn together and the space to take engineering ideas from concept to creation – via lots of different prototypes of course.”

The Shared STEM facilities opened officially on February 21 and students will start the GCSE Engineering course from September 2022.

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