CQE had the pleasure of visiting pupils at Thornbury Primary Leadership Academy, to deliver the first in a series of aspirational sessions about software engineering.  

The visit signals the launch of ‘Gearing Up’ an educational programme of interactive talks and workshops to engage budding young engineers of the future. Designed to raise awareness and aspirations of primary school pupils across Leeds and Bradford, the sessions highlight the apps that children are using day to day to explain the three stages of software engineering – design, build and test. They also challenge pupils to recognise the qualities they already possess, showing that roles are accessible and that we all have the skills to become an engineer, designer or tester.

Headed up by CQE’s Consulting Director, Phil Stead, this initial ‘Gearing Up’ session will be followed up with a workshop in which pupils will work in three groups dependant on their identified skill set, to design, build and test a new product. Phil will also revisit Thornbury Primary in the new academic year to work with Year 6 pupils as they prepare for high school and the start of the journey towards making career options.

Talking about the programme, Phil said:

“It was an absolute pleasure to spend time with the pupils at Thornbury Primary. We have a thriving software engineering industry in West Yorkshire and are so lucky to have Bradford, the UK’s city with the youngest population, in our county. We are blessed in that the youngsters today are so au fait with technology - we literally have the young engineers of tomorrow on our doorstep.”

“However, there is still a bit of an enigma around software engineering which means it often gets overlooked as a career choice. Our programme aims to burst this misperception by showing how it can be relevant, fun and attainable. Everybody loves an app and so this was the natural example to use. This was the first of our sessions and I already can’t wait to get back into the classroom to work with the pupils some more.”

Clare Daddy, Principal at Thornbury Primary Leadership Academy, added:

“We were delighted to invite CQE in to school to work with our budding software engineers. It can sometimes be seen as a profession that is out of reach so we wanted to work with Corecom to challenge that perception and broaden our pupils’ horizons. Phil’s down to earth and fun approach appealed to us and mirrored our STAR values. He really grabbed the classes’ imagination and they’re looking forward to his next session when they can delve deeper into picking out their star engineering qualities.”

Established in 2020, CQE is part of the multi-award winning Corecom Consulting brand. Equality and diversity lie at the core of the business ethos with Corecom instigating and partaking in numerous community and charitable partnerships to drive local awareness, skills, recruitment and retention into the IT and tech sector. A key focus of the Corecom E&D strategy is to work with people from a young age to improve awareness and understanding of the skills and qualities required to become a tech or engineering specialist, as well as developing pathways to enter the profession.