Calderdale College celebrates innovation on National Manufacturing Day
Calderdale College partnered with West Yorkshire Manufacturing Services (WYMS) and Make UK to deliver Yorkshire’s largest National Manufacturing Day showcase for the third year running on Thursday 25 September.
Over 30 businesses attended, including 3MBIC, a subsidiary of the University of Huddersfield, Thomas Broadbent Ltd, the Textile Centre of Excellence and West Yorkshire Combined Authority, to show their support for the event and demonstrate the wide range of careers in the manufacturing sector.
The day opened doors for school pupils from Years 9-13 across West Yorkshire to explore careers in modern manufacturing through a variety of hands-on, interactive workshops. The activities included demos of Virtual Reality (VR) and robotics machinery, racing cars on the STEM Racing track, driving Electra Trucks, operating Boston Dynamics products, 3D printing and interactive tours of our industry-standard engineering workshops.
The manufacturing sector contributes around £7bn to the local economy, employing over 117,000 people. As the second largest sector in West Yorkshire, 14% of all high growth businesses in the region are manufacturers, making it a career path of life-long professional development and growth.
David Malone, Principal and Chief Executive at Calderdale College, said: “National Manufacturing Day is an important date in the College calendar, as we give hundreds of young people the chance to explore the exciting career opportunities within the sector.
“As a College, we are committed to developing the future workforce of manufacturing by providing expert training in our state-of-the-art facilities, ensuring our students are confident and workplace-ready when they complete their qualifications.”
KS3 Careers Advisor for Bruntcliffe Academy, Amy Ripper, said: “We brought forty-seven Year 9 students to Calderdale College’s National Manufacturing Day, they had a fantastic time and engaged in a variety of activities that have inspired them to look into engineering courses and careers after school.”
Bruntcliffe Academy student, Max, said: “I enjoyed seeing all the technology and robotics and chatting with the exhibitors. I would like to do a course in mechanics or engineering at college and it’s good to know I have these options local to me.”
Praise, Year 10 new student at Newsome Academy attended the day with her school and found it insightful to boost her future career.
She said: “My favourite part of the day was the VR fabrication and welding, the day was fun and speaking with the College’s tutors at the Engineering Centre was insightful as I got to ask how a course can help me pursue my dream career”.
Students spoke to our students for an insider-view of college life and met with our expert tutors to watch live demonstrations of STEM Racing cars travel at top speeds and try their hand at VR welding. They also learned how a manufacturing apprenticeship at our Engineering Centre can lead to a rewarding and lifelong career in the manufacturing sector.
Visitors also had behind-the-scenes access to the i4.0 Hub where they learned about how artificial intelligence is contributing towards learning. The Hub was funded by the Brighouse Town Deal in 2024 to transform the future of engineering and manufacturing in West Yorkshire.
Discover our Engineering and Manufacturing courses at our Brighouse Engineering Centre here.
