Dounreay graduates create online work experience
A team of Dounreay graduates put their heads together to come up with a new virtual way of delivering work experience to young people.
The Dounreay virtual work experience project team
Due to COVID-19 restrictions Dounreay was unable to offer local high school students their normal work experience week this year. But a group of apprentices and graduates got together to create a virtual experience instead with help from the in-house training and development team, Speakers for School and other NDA operating companies.
The sessions were well attended with students from as far afield as London and Derby taking part. The programme featured planning and building a hypothetical low-level waste facility with students taking on the roles of engineers, safety advisors, waste operators and more.
The final activity was to make a model of the waste facility and the participants really threw everything they had learnt at the build, with Kian winning the first prize.
Julia Massey, Regional Head of Speakers for Schools, said:
“The young project team masterfully brought together a well-structured and high impact programme delivered to next generation nuclear engineers. “The session really helped to build the confidence of the students. By the end of week 4 students were engaging both verbally and with cameras on – this is no mean feat.”
The NDA now hopes this programme can be repeated for other students at other NDA sites.
The NDA’s People Strategy Delivery Manager, Codie Barnes, said:
“The team at Dounreay has put in an extraordinary amount of effort to ensure the event was a success. It’s been a pleasure working in partnership with Dounreay and Speakers for School to develop a virtual work experience opportunity for young people… they’ve created something really special that I hope we can use across the rest of the NDA group.”