TEACHERS and local industry figures have come together this week to sow a seed in the minds of primary school children about the love of science.

Following on from a successful space week last year, the pupils at Robert Le Kyng Primary School have been immersing themselves in engineering.

The initiative is part of a wider national push to get children interested in the STEM subjects – science, technology, engineering and maths – from a young age.

Deputy Head, Kate Mackinnon, said: “We’ve really gone for the idea, so far we’ve had 15 STEM ambassadors come in over the week.

“We’ve covered a lot of different area, some of the ambassadors have specific interests and expertise so we’ve tried to work those in.

“We’re trying to get the children to think about whether it’s a job they might like to do in the future, or a subject they might want to study more at secondary school.

“It’s also about getting them to think about how they achieve things – looking at working as a team and developing ideas.

“It has been fantastic week and all the children have really enjoyed themselves.”

Classes of all ages have been working on a number of practical challenges during the week, including everything from transporting milk in a farm scenario to building pulleys, bridges and prosthetic limbs.

STEM ambassadors from firms including Intel, Siemens and Cross Engineering to name just three put on workshops and gave talks to spark an interest in the youngsters.

The school also played host to the simulator from the Bloodhound Car project – a vehicle built in an effort to set a new land speed record by breaking the 1,000mph barrier.

To complement that experience, Bloodhound Ambassador Richard Goldman worked with the children on creating model cars propelled by balloons and compressed air.

“It’s been a really good day,” said Richard. “They’ve all been asking lots of really good questions about the car and the programme – they’ve been very engaged.

“For me I really think we have to start introducing the STEM subjects early on, children absorb ideas so well at this age.

“Of course you have to make it fun too, it's important they enjoy themselves.”

Amelie, 10, who is in Year 5 at Robert Le Kyng, said: “Engineering week has been really fun, we learnt about prosthetic limbs and how to make the joints move.”

Her classmate, Jake, also 10, said: “I’ve made this prosthetic arm, it has a curved part on the end so you can hold a ball and then with the other hand you can pull it back to throw - it's for playing sport.”

Jake and Amelie both said they would be more likely to choose engineering and science subjects in the future after the work they had done during the week.

The next phase will see year 4 and 5 pupils building on their in-school activities with visits to Intel and UTC Swindon in the coming weeks.