Olive School pupils begin engineering themselves exciting careers in STEM

The Olive School pupils were left feeling inspired to consider careers in STEM after a visit from three women with science backgrounds – including a female engineer from the Ministry of Defence’s procurement organisation, Defence Equipment and Support.

Our Women In STEM day on Friday 9 February saw the school visited by women working in a variety of occupations relating to the STEM subjects of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths.

The entire school heard from Dr Sarah Alam who works as a GP, pharmacist Moonira Hinglotwala, and engineer Vimbai Fedrick. The women then took part in a question and answer session to give pupils the opportunity to find out how they each came to work in their chosen occupation.

Vimbai Fedrick, who works for Defence Equipment and Support as an engineer in the Submarine Chief Engineer’s team, took part in the Women In STEM day. Following some whole school activities, Vimbai worked with our Year 6 pupils. After sharing more about her education and training, and how her career has led her to travel the world and work with cutting edge technology, pupils were tasked with writing Vimbai’s biography.

Vimbai is keen to act as a role model to inspire young females to take an interest in engineering careers. She said, “My visit to The Olive School was amazing and all the children were very engaging. They were so bright and enthusiastic and seemed to really enjoy hearing about what a career in engineering has to offer. Being able to share my experience of becoming an Engineer, which has been one of the greatest achievements of my life, is one of the things I enjoy most about my job. I’ve been able to make what other people may think of as impossible possible, and it’s really important to me to inspire other young girls to do the same.”

Year 6 pupil Zainab Patel commented, “Vimbai inspired me and showed me that to be an engineer you don’t just need to be able to build things. You need to be able to work as part of a team and have trust in one another.”

Head Girl and Year 6 pupil Faiqa Murtaza added, “Listening to all three women inspired us to strive hard to achieve our dreams. Nowadays there is a stereotype that girls can’t do specific jobs and Vimbai has proved the world wrong! Go, women!”

Teacher Umhera Jadoon, who is The Olive School’s science lead, added, “We’re so grateful to Vimbai, Sarah and Moonira for taking the time to talk to our pupils. Visits such as this really help the children to appreciate how what they learn in school translates into their future careers, and they were all left feeling inspired by the three women’s stories.”

Added By: Olive Blackburn | Date Added: 19th Feb 2018 | Posted In:

The Olive School, Blackburn

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