School of Engineering Brochure

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Hartlepool College of Further Education

SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING:

PROGRAMMES

IN AEROSPACE AUTOMOTIVE MANUFACTURING RESEARCH CONTROL APPLIED MATERIALS DIGITAL & OTHERS

Real prospects need real skills and experience: Hartlepool College really delivers

“THE ENGINEERING COLLEGE” – that’s how many employers both regionally and nationally refer to Hartlepool College of Further Education. While a rise in demand for engineers has seen new training organisations and other colleges dip their toes into the sector, few can match HCFE’s record or experience.

You can watch a short film about Hartlepool College’s Engineering heritage, courses and facilities at

bit.ly/hcfeeng

The first engineering courses offered by HCFE’s forebear, the West Hartlepool Mechanics Institute, were established in 1849 to train workers at the very outset of the industrial revolution. It became Hartlepool Municipal Technical College in 1897, delivering skills in engineering, shipbuilding and mathematics - making it one of the country’s original STEM providers!

In 1962 Hartlepool College moved to its now traditional location on Stockton Street, in the town centre close to all major transport links. At the time it had the largest workshops in the region, offering cutting-edge courses that introduced many engineers to emerging areas such as electronics and computing.

Over the next five decades the College would build an impressive reputation with over 2000 employers across numerous sectors and all parts of the country – indeed, sometimes the world.

It quickly grew to become the largest provider of Apprenticeships in the area – a status it continues to enjoy to this day. Not only that, it’s the seventh best performing provider in the country, and officially in the top 20% of English colleges.

It’s also the regional hub of the National Skills Academy Nuclear.

When the College moved into its new building in 2011, its engineering provision was expanded threefold, with new, dedicated facilities including state-of-theart laboratories, industry-standard training facilities and even an aircraft hangar with three full airframes.

Companies it works with include Gestamp Tallent, Tata Steel, Caterpillar, Siemens, EDF Energy, Cummins Engines, Heerema, Darchem Engineering, Fine Industries, NSK Bearings, KP Foods and Altec Engineering, with many more engaging in partnership all the time.

Most of the new resources were designed with maximum input from our employer partners to ensure that they met the demanding requirements of the various engineering sectors we deliver. Most of our staff have industrial backgrounds, some bringing with them decades of experience.

HCFE frequently hosts students from abroad, with engineers from Kuwait, Nigeria and Qatar amongst those taking advantage of the facilities, with English language teaching also usually part of the package. See the next page for more information.

In fact, many of the features that more recent organisations proudly promote were first implemented by HCFE as it has blazed a trail for others to follow.

HCFE is very proactive in encouraging females into engineering, with significant numbers enrolled. On June 23rd we hosted one of the UK’s largest events to coincide with national Women Into Engineering Day. Over sixty young female engineers came along to discover opportunities for careers in engineering and try their hand at practical skills - organised, appropriately, by one of the College’s several female engineering lecturers.

HCFE was also an early innovator in its approach to higher education, working with university partners such as Teesside University to allow students to move seamlessly to higher level qualifications while still studying mostly at the College.

In fact, so advanced are its facilities some universities actually send students here to benefit from them, for example in Aerospace.

Hartlepool College is renowned for its innovation, with courses always keeping ahead of current demands by careful monitoring of trends, technology and developments in engineering, and also through direct communication with a near “who’s who” of sector leaders.

Hartlepool College engineering alumni now work all over the world, often in senior positions – for example over the last 15 years several have gone on to be engineers at Nissan. We have a quality engineer with Jaguar Landrover, an engineer with GE Aviation in Southampton, a lead piping engineer and electrical engineers at Amec Foster Wheelers, a planning engineer at EDF and a senior electrical engineer at Whessoe Engineering, to name but a few.

Engineers make the world.

We make engineers.

Hartlepool College: a global approach to Engineering

Hartlepool College is one of the most pro-active education establishments in the country when it comes to employer engagement and partnership. Over the past five decades we have worked with over 2,000 employers, ranging from local SMEs to immense multinationals. The sectors and sizes of the various companies vary greatly, but all have one thing in common - they receive the highest standard of training, support and cost-effectiveness from us.

The College’s Aerospace facilities form one of its biggest single assets, and always impress visitors. Recent tours have been conducted by exchange students from (left to right) Nigeria, India, numerous local schools and HRH Prince Andrew, who officially opened the new College building in February 2012. As a former RAF pilot who had trained on the Jet Provost, His Royal Highness extended his scheduled tour by some time to talk to students and staff and examine the facilities in more detail.

The College also regards international connections a high priority. One striking feature of our internationalist approach takes the form of thirty flagpoles located at the main entrance of the College. As the College sits on the A689, the main artery into and out of Hartlepool, these are visible to all visitors using this route.

The flagpoles allow us to highlight our belief that skills and aspiration are universal, and that in our world of advanced transport and communications technology it makes no sense to take a localised approach to doing business. For those times when the College welcomes delegations from partners or visitors, they enable us to show the world their value to us by flying their corporate or national flag, or a mix of the two.

Of course this is merely a single detail, but one that reflects a wider ethic - that the College gives all partners and clients complete support and attention to detail, especially when it comes to the quality of provision we offer and the flexibility with which we offer it.

This is one of the reasons why the College is regarded as an exemplar by many companies, and also our partners in the education sector. Teesside University often make a visit to the College a feature of activities for exchange students, with recent visitors from Nigeria and India enjoying detailed tours.

The College is also highly experienced in delivering training and programmes to students from abroad, and has in recent years hosted engineers from Kuwait and Nigeria. Recently, we have added Qatar to that list.

The programme commenced in September 2015 and covers basic engineering skills and introduction to aircraft maintenance at Level 2 NVQ, followed by a BTEC technical qualification at Level 3 progressing to a HND in Aeronautical Engineering.

Negotiations opened in 2014 for the provision of an integrated development programme for the Qatar government to train Qatari aircraft engineering technicians at Hartlepool College. The bespoke programme that was agreed spanned three years full-time at the College’s dedicated Skills Academy and Aeronautical Engineering facility.

To support the learners throughout the programme of study, technical English and practical aircraft maintenance practices are also included across all three years.

Both the military and civil aerospace sectors in Qatar are renowned for using state-of-the-art aircraft, such as the Airbus A380, Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the C-17 Globemaster, the Dassault Mirage 2000 and, in the near future, the Dassault Rafale, one of the most advanced multirole fighter jets in the world. With this in mind, their need for the most highly skilled technical support personnel is paramount.

Completing students will then proceed to further training on type at other locations or proceed to a one year top-up BEng Tech degree in Aeronautical Engineering to be delivered jointly with Teesside University at Hartlepool.

The programme is delivered by an enthusiastic and experienced team of aeronautical engineering specialists with in depth industry experience in the RAF, Airbus and FlyBe. On site facilities include two fixed and one rotary wing airframe in our hangar facility, RB211 and Viper jet engines, a subsonic wind tunnel for aerodynamic modelling and a Lockheed Martin flight simulation system used to demonstrate flight dynamics and aircraft systems.

The College is an established provider of aeronautical engineering, having a large cohort of full time Level 3 and HND students, Level 3 Advanced Apprentices and a seventy-plus cohort of students studying for BEng/MEng in aerospace engineering, jointly delivered with Teesside University.

Strong links are maintained between the College and the RAF and other major national companies in the aircraft maintenance and design fields.

Hartlepool College: at the heart of Engineering Hartlepool College is in the top 10% of all colleges in the country for adult education programmes, with a pass rate well above the national average. Engineering is the single biggest area within the College, and takes up over a third of its internal space.

In fact, so big is our Engineering provision that it holds its own annual awards ceremony, which almost rivals the College’s main Celebration of Achievement in scale. Many employers sponsor awards and represent the Engineering sector by attending the event.

Hartlepool College also hosts an annual Projects Presentation Day every April, where over 100 students showcase their work to some of the biggest names in the Engineering sector.

The day is a highlight in the College’s annual calendar, and is the culmination a year-long project designed to highlight students’ advanced practical and technical skills. The majority of students taking part are apprentices, with many projects having been actually adopted by their employers - over forty companies usually participate in support of the event, including Gestamp Tallent, Tata Steel, Caterpillar, NSK, JDR Cables, Darchem and EDF Energy.

Many of the projects on show are linked directly to the workplace, having been used in practice to offer a positive impact on operations – whether it be costs savings, improving health and safety or a new potential product or service to take to market.

The Programmes The College delivers programmes at all levels, from Level 1 introductory programmes right up to BEng and MEng programmes in associated with Teesside University. Subject areas include Aerospace, Aeronautical Engineering, Electro-technical Engineering, Mechatronics, Instrumentation, Mechanical, Fabrication, Environmental, Automotive - in fact, just about every aspect of the sector.

Courses are delivered both full- and part-time from set programmes, and also on a bespoke basis for commercial clients. In the latter case we can quickly and cost-effectively create courses specifically to a client’s needs, and deliver either here at the College or on their own site. We also offer a wide range of supporting areas, such as Health & Safety, First Aid and other courses that can keep staff up to date with changes in legislation or good practise.

Above: the College’s Project Presentation Day, which typically involves over 100 students and 40 employers.

Left: the College’s annual Engineering Awards is the second biggest awards event in its annual calendar, second only to our main Celebration of Achievement.

The ceremony is often marked by support and sponsorship from some of the top names in the Engineering sector.

For more information on Hartlepool College, or to arrange a tour: t. (01429) 295000 | e. enquiries@hartlepoolfe.ac.uk or visit www.hartlepoolfe.ac.uk