Civil Engineer Visit

On Friday the 17th of March, a selection of students in Years 9 and above had the opportunity to listen to a presentation by Mark Wheeler, a civil engineer. Whilst here, he outlined what his career was about and how he has developed and learned after becoming an engineer. He explained that civil engineering is a field that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical, artificial and naturally built environment around us.

In addition, he gave as an insight into what his job is composed of including designing and building works like roads, bridges, canals, dams, and buildings. He informed us that civil engineering takes place working with a variety of people including governments, individual homeowners and even Transnational Corporations. We were educated on how it ties in with a number of fields including mathematics, physics, law, business and sociology, and as such, is a great career choice as part of STEM for anyone who has multiple interests and skill sets.

Our presenter showed us a set of clips that outlined the biggest civil engineering disasters including: The Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse and The Hyatt Regency Walkway Collapse. These demonstrated that, small but crucial mistakes (such as not factoring in wind speed and aerodynamics to the calculations) would have dangerous repercussions – proving that engineering is very much an exact science! As well as this, he touched upon some other branches of engineering: (bio)medical engineering, aerospace engineering, electronic/mechanical engineering and chemical engineering. We found out what a wide scope of careers that involved engineering and how they require a lot of skill and logic. Also, our presenter gave us a brief overview of the ways in which you could become an engineer, including an apprenticeship route, university course or work experience. He shared with us his own personal career experiences, explained the benefits and disadvantages to each choice and gave us advice and suggestions on current opportunities to take.

At the end, Mr Wheeler gave us examples of past Presdales students who have gone into engineering as a career and who have won many awards and achievements within the industry. Our presenter was happy to answer any questions we had about the field, his job, or becoming an engineer in general; and the students intuitively asked detailed questions.

On behalf of everyone who had the opportunity to attend this interactive and educational presentation, I would like to thank Mr Wheeler for giving up his time to come and speak to us and the science department for organising a very inspiring talk.

Ayesha Unadkat, Year 9

Interview with Mark Wheeler

Mark Wheeler is civil engineer working for WSP. He has been doing his job for 23 years and on Friday 17th of March he came to talk to Year 9+. However, eight Year 8s (myself included) were given the chance to interview him and here are a few of the questions and answers:

What did you study? For A-level I studied Maths, Physics and Geography then I went on and got a degree in civil engineering.

Did you always want to be a civil engineer, if not what got you into it? When I was doing my A-levels I didn’t know what I wanted to be. After school I didn’t go to university; instead I applied for a bunch of jobs. One of those jobs was at a civil engineering firm. After a year of working there I decided I enjoyed it. This is what I wanted to do. So then I went and got a degree in civil engineering.

Can you get your job any other way? You can start off by doing an apprenticeship from GCSE. You could do an apprenticeship degree which is a lot harder but it makes you more valuable to the firm. Or you could join through the graduate route by going to university.

What’s the best part of your job? I think there are many good parts but my favourite parts are the variation of work and environments, sometimes I am outside, other times I am at the office. The immense sense of achievement after a project, the rewarding feeling of pride and getting to say ‘I did that’ is really good. Also there is the fact that every project is unique.

What kind of projects have you been involved in? I have been involved in thousands of projects. But civil engineers do all sorts of things depending on their field (purely technical, geo-technical or working mostly with customers). We build things from nuclear power stations to railroads, from bridges and tunnels to warehouses and depots and even skyscrapers and data centres. And environmental projects as well, like wind turbines or cleaning up contaminated land.

How long do projects tend to be? It depends on the project – it can be 6 months to 15+ years.

Is there any part of your job that you dislike? Well there is the general work like filling out forms and paper work, credit checks, Quality Assurance and all the different systems.

Do you work with architectural firms? Yes we do, loads. They do the plans mostly though we actually build it along with others because we are just lots of groups of specialised people working together.

How many types of engineers are there? There are 5 main fields, usually most engineers fall into one category. They are: I. Civil II. Mechanical III. Chemical IV. Technical V. Software

And finally: Are there any extra skills or degrees you might need? English is always helpful and if you want to work overseas another language is good. Being organised and having good time management is useful too.

For me and the other Year 8s involved, it was really interesting and got us to consider a future career in science.

Anthe Beston, Year 8

Year 9 Science Trip to GSK

On Friday the 24th of March, a group of year nine students attended the launch of an interschool science competition called Go4SET held in the Ware GSK Headquarters. The competition is sponsored by EDT and it hopes to inspire young people to go into STEM careers and to gain experience that will make them stand out in the eyes of potential employers. Those completing the process would ‘graduate’ with a silver science CREST certificate and Industrial Cadet Award.

On arrival, we had a presentation led by the co-ordinators of the event, and they explained the ideas behind the project we would be studying, whilst we arranged our teams. Overall we had three teams: Presdales Brilliance, Excellence and Radiance. They were composed of around 6-7 girls per group with different strengths and ideas. We then had some time to choose our project categories from among: Our Healthy School, Eco-Classroom and Energy Sources for Our School. Next, we met our mentors (GSK employers) that will work alongside us in our project development and 10 week course, one of which was Steph, a recent GSK recruit. Next, we spent some time planning how we would manage our time in our weekly meetings and brainstormed ideas and thoughts with our mentors about potential themes, marketing, research and presentation ideas for our projects. We mainly considered conducting surveys and interviews with our peers, parents and teachers.

After this, we went on a tour around the drug manufacturing site, led by a GSK pharmaceutical managing director and explored the various prospects to their drug development process including the granulating, compression and coating stages. Our tour guide explained the importance of the protective clothing and goggles and gave us new information about the GSK production line and the long process to get drugs on the market. Our volunteers listened eagerly and inquisitively asked questions that our guide was happy to answer. After lunch, our presenter explained project management to us and to illustrate the point we were set a task where we had to plan, design and build the tallest tower that would support the weight of a golf ball made entirely from spaghetti and jelly babies! The project had to be completed within 30 minutes and within budget.

All of the teams set off to a roaring start and the Presdales models were certainly the most well thought out and geometric ones there! Soon enough, our time had run out and everyone was eager to find the winners of the challenge. The tallest tower was built by St. Edmond’s School (over 50cm in height), however the 2nd tallest and the most economic was built by Presdales Brillance and, therefore, they were the overall winner!  In our final hour or so, we finalised our thoughts for our projects and came up with a main focus, as well as planning our time in the next few meetings using a Gant Chart. Finally, the session had come to an end and everyone was given a set of science-themed stickers and wristbands to commemorate the day. We then left the site and began to find our way back to school; we were all raring to commence our projects the following week, in preparation to the presentation we would make back in GSK, 10 weeks later.

On behalf of those attending I would like to say a big thank you to the science department who organised the visit, encouraged students to attend and signed us up to an event that will prove to be educational, beneficial and enjoyable to all those taking part.

Ayesha Unadkat, Year 9

Spring Concert (2)

On Thursday the 23rd the music department was proud to present the spectacular second Spring concert entitled ‘Around The World’. The concert featured around 150 pupils from Year 7 up to Year 13 and thrilled the packed audience of parents, friends, teachers and governors of Presdales school.

The concert started with the ever popular Little Big Band performing three Jazz standards from around the globe, including Fly Me To The Moon – which was indeed out of this world! The Senior Choir then performed Freedom ’90 in tribute to George Michael, followed by a touching rendition of The Abolition of Slavery by Bob Chilcott, a poignant setting of words by Charles Bennett that reflects on one of the most significant events of our time. The school’s concert band concluded the first half with a roaring piece called At A Dixieland Jazz Funeral which features our very own Dixieland combo of Carrie Craig (year 11) on Clarinet, Beth Marshall (year 13) on Trumpet, Claire Barker (year 13) on Trombone, Maddie Bryan (year 13) on Tuba and Lydia Silcock (year 12) on Drums. Celtic Ritual, a mesmerising piece for concert band, finished the first half in a thrilling display of the concert bands’ skill and finesse.

The Junior Choir began the second half with Maddie Bryan (year 13) conducting a fun version of the traditional Joshua Fought The Battle of Jericho that, from the look on their faces, the Junior Choir thoroughly enjoyed singing! The orchestra then brought us Leroy Anderson’s Blue Tango, and a roaring rendition of the Bavarian Ein Schnapps. The string group, which is made up of beginners to grade 8 and beyond string players, brought us a refined performance of Warlock’s Capriol Suite, adding a touch of class to the evening’s proceedings. Bella Voce, our auditioned choir, performed the thrilling Las Amarillas by Stephen Hatfield. This tricky acapella piece hails from Mexico and challenged our singers to clap, snap and stamp whilst singing the feverishly complex melodies and harmonies. It was a real treat for the eyes and ears.

This year’s finale saw all performers from the evening join together on stage for The Circle of Life. Azaria Gayle (Year 8) began with the famous Zulu solo whilst the combined orchestra, string group and concert band accompanied. The Senior Choir were already gathered on stage and, during the introduction, the Junior Choir arrived singing from the back of the hall. The performance was spectacular and received a standing ovation from the audience – it was the perfect way to end one of the best concerts Presdales School has seen in many years.

Miss Mapplebeck

Circle of Life Workshop

On Monday 20th March, Gary Hind, the children’s musical director for the West End hit musical The Lion King, came to Presdales to lead a workshop for the orchestra, concert band and choirs. Miss Cheetham had planned and arranged a special finale, the Circle of Life from the Lion King, for our “Around the World” themed concert on Thursday 23rd March, so the opportunity to meet and work with Gary to ensure the concert finale would knock the audience’s socks off was not to be missed.

First, Gary worked with the Junior and Senior Choirs. Since he knows Circle of Life so well, Gary could tell us what all of the Zulu words meant and how to pronounce them properly (even if the meanings weren’t exactly as exciting as we thought they would be – “It’s a lion, yes it is a lion”.) He gave us some pointers to improve our performance of the song: to use good diction, to smile and to use our facial expressions to make it look more interesting. Gary also helped the Senior Choir with some harmonies in the chorus.

Next, Gary spent half an hour working with the orchestra and concert band. Even though they had many long notes to play, they had to make them as exciting as possible to create the amazing Lion King atmosphere.

For the final part of the workshop, the massed choirs, concert band and orchestra came together to play or sing with each other for the first time. After the first play-through, Gary explained to us how dynamics are very important in the Circle of Life and we had to emphasise them as much as we could. The final practice, conducted by Miss Cheetham, sent shivers down our spines and we knew we were ready for the concert. On the night, with the microphones and lighting, the concert finished to rapturous applause, a standing ovation and smiles on everyone’s faces.

Charlotte Waring, Year 7

On Friday 17th March, the Year 8-10 Presdales Spanish learners gathered in the hall for an exciting Spanish live theatre experience. The aim of the afternoon was to enhance our Spanish listening skills and learn new words from the performance of the play – all in Spanish! Some of us also had to answer quick-fire questions that came our way during the performance, which was exciting – if a little nerve-wracking! The storyline followed Carmen Tecles García on her birthday as she tried to meet up with her cousin María, a cycle courier in beautiful Barcelona. Carmen thinks that María has forgotten her birthday but there is actually a fun surprise planned at the end – a feast María would never forget!

However, on her way to meeting María (just missing her every time), Carmen comes across many strange people, including: a fortune teller, a watch seller, a tourist looking for directions, swindlers, news reporters, buskers and a very helpful policeman; all portrayed magnificently by the actresses. In her journey, she comes across some of Barcelona’s most beautiful attractions including La Sagrada Familia, Casa Mila, Plaça Catalunya and Plaça d’Espanya! She even has a rather bumpy journey on the metro and gets a lift from a policeman. During the performance, we were given the opportunity to get up and dance onstage, and to converse with the actresses during an interesting and interactive Spanish television news report.

In our lessons before the performance, we were provided with a booklet that consisted of an introduction to the city, buildings, culture and characters as well as some key vocabulary we would need to decipher what the characters were saying. It provided a breakdown of the scenes and a brief synopsis of the play that allowed the Spanish learners to follow the story as much as possible. As well as this, there was a map of Barcelona, so that we could track Carmen’s journey. In addition, it was full of interesting activities that allowed us to reflect on the play as an experience, and exercises to practise our translation, cultural knowledge and writing skills.

Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience as it improved my ability to interpret what the characters were saying and I learnt lots of new vocabulary that I will be able to use further on in my Spanish learning career. On behalf of all of the Spanish students here at Presdales, I would like to say a big thank you to the theatre production cast that performed for us, and the Spanish department for organising a very enjoyable and educational day for the students.

Ayesha Unadkat, Year 9

On the basis of her fantastic achievement in the UK Intermediate Maths Challenge this year, Grace Farrell, Year 10, has been selected to attend the UK Mathematics Summer School. She will be attending St Anne’s College, Oxford, for the week long course this summer.

On Tuesday the 14th March, 4 girls from years 8 and 9 (Emily Mayes, Elisenda Henderson, Leanna Rhodes and Rebecca Fletcher) participated in a UKMT Team Maths Challenge held in Bancroft’s School. There were 4 rounds of different sets of questions, varying from asking for the sum of certain primes to finding the distance between two houses when given two times and a difference in speed. This was made all the more intimidating by the 28 other (mostly private) schools who participated, out of which we came 11th, and the overall large, old, and impressive nature of the school building itself. However, the last challenge of the day wasn’t mathematical at all- it was finding our way out! Many thanks to Mr Beckley who organised the training sessions before the event, and took us there too.

Rebecca Fletcher, Year 9