A total of 60 students Year 6 pupils from Woodlands Primary School, Great Yarmouth, enjoyed an interactive challenge developed and delivered for Ørsted in partnership with the East of England Energy Group (EEEGR). It was designed to show that even those who don’t want to head out on a boat for work or climb up a wind turbine can still find job opportunities available in the offshore wind sector.
The Cable Route Challenge workshop was based on the real-life experiences of building Ørsted’s Hornsea 3 onshore cable route, which will take power from its offshore wind farm to the onshore converter station near Swardeston, Norwich. This is a journey of more than 50km.
Supervised by their teachers, staff and students from East Norfolk 6th Form College sixth form and industry volunteers, the students had to: build a 3D landscape model of a cable route, using trays, sand and other materials. They then explored ‘contour lines’ reflecting the Norfolk landscape using wool and physical models. After that they were challenged to convert a 3D model into a 2D one using grids before planning and costing an electricity cable route. The workshop was created to align with national curriculum goals covering elements of maths, geography, engineering and science. It also meets the latest ‘Modern Work Experience’ expectations and ‘Gatsby Benchmarks’ set by the Department for Education as a requirement for schools.
Working in teams of 3 or 4 the students were thrown curveballs such as archaeological sites in the path of their cable route and had to use their best ideas to address this so the sites could be preserved. They were also introduced to the concept of ‘Horizontal Directional Drilling’ and how this helps navigate under roads and railway lines as well as important environmental features such as rivers.
As part of the workshop, the students also heard about real-world engineering and careers available in the sector. Following this inaugural event, there are plans to run the workshop in five more schools along the Ørsted onshore cable route between now and Summer this year.
The event coincides with a total of more than 1 million worker hours completed on the real-life cable route in Norfolk since work began in 2023.
Madison McKeever, Year 6 Teacher at Woodlands Primary School, said: “The students were really engaged as the workshop was so interactive and they were keen to share all the new things they’d learned. Next week is careers week at school and this activity will help us continue the careers conversation in the classroom. We teachers also learned something new as we didn’t realise the variety of roles available in the renewable energy sector.”
Lauren Little, Senior Stakeholder Advisor from Ørsted said: “ What most impressed me about the students was their enthusiasm and creativity and how well they communicated with each other. I’m sure we’ll have many more talented young people from Norfolk join the renewable energy industry and get jobs close to home in the future.”
Suzanne Allen from EEEGR said: “It’s been brilliant to work with Ørsted and with young people, sharing the exciting work that’s happening right here in our region. It’s also a great opportunity to show them that, whatever their interests, there really is a place for them and plenty of opportunities in the energy sector. Seeing how they approach tasks is inspiring, they bring so much imagination and ask questions you wouldn’t even think of. We hope they keep that curiosity. Many of them were surprised by how much thought goes into these kinds of projects; as one student put it, ‘there’s lots of big decisions to make’. They were all fantastic and a real credit to themselves and their school.”
