Trust News
Engineering Visit
Posted on 11/11/2021This month, Priory Academy welcomed Madhavi Kotecha, Principal Project Manager in Retrieval Robotics from Ocado who delivered assemblies to pupils in Years 5, 6, 10 and 11 to help inspire more young people to pursue professions related to STEM.
Having undertaken a degree in Automotive Engineering with Motorsport, Madhavi was quickly offered a job within Formula One Racing working for key customers such as Mclaren, Ferrari and Mercedes as an Application Engineer. After leaving SKF, Madhavi joined Ocado and has since relished the challenges of engineering robots and machinery to support the online platform.
Madhavi spoke of the endless opportunities within engineering, demonstrated her passion and expertise and spoke about the boundless creative opportunities.
Like many STEM subjects, engineering is still a profession that is vastly underrepresented by women. To help challenge this, Madhavi worked with 60 targeted female students in Years 10 and 11, delivering a creative challenge which focused on the principles of engineering. Our students thoroughly enjoyed the activity and were bursting with questions! Several of the students even said that they would further research the area and were highly motivated to enter the profession, especially because “it paid so well.” (as quoted by a female student in Year 11).
We have further future opportunities for external speakers who will come in during the academic year to help raise aspirations in our pupils including the CEO of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation (November) and the Bank of England (December). If you think you could offer some time during the academic year to come in to deliver a talk to our pupils about your profession (all professions welcome!), please contact Miss Khatun on skhatun@prioryacademy.co.uk. After all, it takes a village to raise a child!
