Pupils engineer a bright future

ST PAUL'S CE school,Royton, pupils who took part in The Greater Manchester Primary Engineer Leaders Awards. From left, Millie Jones (8) who was highly commended, overall winner Joshua Wilson (8) and year group winner Madison Wilcock (9).

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A SOCK sorter, a pet carer, and a cake-o-maker were just some of the ingenious ideas pupils came up with for an engineering competition.

But it was eight-year-old Joshua Wilson's bin scanner which ­- which tells you if rubbish can be recycled ­- which took first place in the The Primary and Secondary Engineer Leaders Awards.

The Year 3 pupil at St Paul's CE Primary in Royton impressed the judges after pupils in Greater Manchester were asked to say what they would invent if they were engineers.

Drawings of their ideas were exhibited at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in Oldham where an awards ceremony was also held. Two winning pupils were chosen from each year, with a judge from the engineering giant Siemens picking the overall winner.

The competition was part of the Primary Engineer Programme which aims to get pupils interested in science, technology engineering and maths, and gives them the opportunity to work with professional engineers.

It was run in partnership with Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce, Manchester City Council and Siemens, and was supported by Oldham Enterprise Trust, Oldham Council and the Stoller Charitable Trust.

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