Champions for Wind concludes in Teesside

Sofia’s Champions for Wind programme has concluded its three-year initiative in Teesside with a celebration event in Saltburn.

Sofia’s Champions for Wind careers programme has worked with Teesside schools for the past three years, providing funded training to local teachers, to enable them to give lessons about offshore wind and renewable energy in schools across the region.

To mark the completion of the Teesside programme, a celebration event was held on 11 July 2024 to showcase what has been achieved.  

Sofia’s education programmes are designed to encourage and support students into careers in offshore wind. Discussing the regional success of Champions for Wind, Mike Cargill, managing director of UK STEM who delivers the programme on behalf of RWE said: “Champions for Wind has been the backbone of our education programme. The success is that we are supporting teachers in developing their own curriculum resources. This means that the message becomes embedded in the classroom and is sustainable because they continue to deliver it. In Redcar and Cleveland, we’ve had around 15 teachers on board across 13 institutions, this means that we’ve accessed hundreds of children through their own work back at schools. Now we are sharing those resources online across other schools as well. 

"We have good anecdotal evidence of individual students that have been involved in the programme applying for courses and apprenticeships because they’ve been inspired by our activities.” 

Working with schools, colleges and universities is a key part of Sofia’s long-term strategy, to create the workforce needed in the future. The event was attended by 80 pupils and adults, including some of the students from primary and secondary schools, special educational needs schools and colleges who were involved in the programme over the three cohorts. The day included various activities designed to educate the pupils about the industry and career workshops. Pupils also heard keynote speeches from Zoë Keeton OBE of RWE, Gemma Green of Outwood Academy Bydales and Mike Fairbairn of Egglescliffe School and Sixth Form college, about why RWE created the initiative and what the pupils gained from the programme over the last three years. 

Zoë Keeton OBE, head of stakeholders and local markets UK and Ireland at RWE Renewables commented: “Champions for Wind is one of our flagship programmes. It’s part of the way we engage with young people, and has enabled us to work with our teacher champions to design activities that really work with the curriculum while showing the great opportunities available in the offshore wind industry. 

“As we build and develop our wind farms, we really want to engage with the communities in which we’re working and show them all the opportunities that brings. Working with the local schools allows us to explain what the new offshore wind farms mean in terms of climate change and clean energy, but also what it can mean in terms of jobs and employment. Hosting events means we can work with them, meet with the children and show them how the activities they are working on today are problems that we are trying to solve. It helps them understand about the skill sets required in the workplace; whether that’s for a career in offshore wind or for any other industry.” 

A pupil from Egglescliffe School said: "During the event, we’ve mainly looked at the wind industry, the general history of wind turbines as a whole, and wind power. We’ve looked at how the industry is changing over time, how it’s getting bigger, how many jobs are needed, and how close it is to home.  

“We’ve learnt that the industry will need over a hundred thousand jobs in the future, and why travel far away, if you can do it while you’re at home. I think it’s an industry of which a lot of people can find a place in, there are so many jobs from managing positions, to art design to technology, to STEM and physics. Everyone has a place in this industry overall. 

“The day has been very fun; I think the entire team that I've been working with have had a really good day so far and it’s nice to get out of the classroom.” 

The learnings from the Teesside cohorts will be applied to the next phase of the programme which will launch in Grimsby this September.  

Discussing the new cohort, Mike said: “We’re working with the Grimsby cohort because the Operation &Maintenance (O&M) base is there, and we’ve got a lot of our activity in Grimsby. We’ve advertised it to teachers, and we’ve got around 12 teachers on board so far which is a fantastic start.” 

The RWE Sofia Offshore Wind Farm is set to become one of the largest single offshore wind farms in the world. RWE has the largest development portfolio for offshore wind projects in the UK. Our planned investments will continue to create green jobs, developing a skilled workforce up and down the country.