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Newcastle school partners with Rolls Royce

A Newcastle academy school, Excelsior Academy, has partnered with British manufacturer, Rolls Royce, to create an engineering apprenticeship scheme.

This week 24 teenagers from Excelsior began a four year apprenticeship where they will learn engineering skills, under Rolls Royce’s guidance, at the North East Training Centre on Scotswood Road.

Excelsior Academy is the first school in the North East to link up with Rolls Royce’s training centre.

The trainees, aged 16 to 18, from Excelsior’s sixth form college will learn skills such as welding, fabrication, machining. computer aided design and electrical wiring.

The scheme will also see the students complete classroom work at Excelsior for the inaugural 12 months of the programme.

Following this, students will head out to work as an apprentice with a North East employer to complete their training for the remaining three years of the scheme under the watchful gaze of Rolls-Royce staff, who will continually monitor and supervise their progress.

The students will gain an NVQ Level Two in Performing Engineering Operations and a BTEC National Diploma in Engineering as part of the apprenticeship scheme.

Rolls-Royce training school manager, Steven Bolton, said: “There is a very good chance that if the apprentices show the right attributes, values and behaviour that they will be taken on by a local company.

“We train them to an industry standard, all our instructors are time served in the areas that they teach with many years in the industry and put knowledge into the apprentices that goes way beyond textbooks.

“This is an unbelievable start to their working lives.

“We deal with a couple of hundred engineering firms in the North East and they know the calibre of the apprentices and the skills they have when they leave us which is exactly what they want in new employees.”

Excelsior Academy executive principal, Phil Marshall, said: “Our apprentices have been given a fantastic opportunity to embark on a fulfilling career under the guidance of Rolls-Royce.

“The skills they will learn from one of the world’s greatest engineering companies will allow them to work in a host of different jobs with knowledge that will be in great demand from companies across the North East.”

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