Champions for Wind

The growing offshore wind industry will offer a whole range of job opportunities to people looking for a career in renewables.  To raise awareness amongst 13 to 14 year olds of the potential career opportunities in offshore wind energy and give an understanding of the qualifications and experience required to gain employment in the industry Forewind, in partnership with the the Humberside Engineering Training Association (HETA), has developed an innovative careers education engagement programme called Champions for Wind.

The initial phase of the programme will be to identify and work with a network of approximately 10 secondary and special school teacher “champions” in the Yorkshire area, near to Forewind’s first development, Dogger Bank Creyke Beck.

Each teacher “champion”, working with careers advisors and wind industry representatives, will design and develop a curriculum-based resource relevant to their local area and appropriate to their school on opportunities offered by the offshore wind farm industry. The teachers will deliver their resource to two to three schools each and will receive a bursary to support their work.

By facilitating careers education for young people in the area around Dogger Bank Creyke Beck’s onshore infrastructure, Forewind aims to meet the needs of the local community while also supporting the wind industry by boosting the number of motivated young people entering into it.

The objectives of the programme include: gender balance in science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects as well as careers; roundedness of the industry; pride, a sense of ownership and skills development in the local area; innovation; providing a vision for the future; building on any existing programmes fostering teacher development, and having a robust evaluation methodology.

More information can be found on the HETA website.