An Apprenticeship at JMS - a vocational window on the engineering world

A Higher Level Apprenticeship with JMS

It’s easy to criticise the education system and rare to praise it. When it meets the right student and the two click, it is well worth taking your hat off to the joint success. And when that student finds a work placement that grows into an apprenticeship four years later in a business as progressive as JMS Engineers, the story becomes a blueprint for mutual achievement.

Megan has just started a Higher Level Apprenticeship with JMS Engineers at their Midlands office and this is her story.

Megan found JMS when she was just 14

The first tick in the box came when Megan attended the Midlands Studio College in Hinckley. The school’s ‘work ready’ educational policy certainly didn’t work for every pupil but it opened vocational doors for Megan. The studio ran a 9 to 5 study programme with one day a week in work experience.

Megan found JMS when she was 14 and started working with the Structural Engineering team every Friday. In two years she gained an impressive collection of GCSEs and went on to King Henry VI Sixth Form College to study Biology, Chemistry and Geography – a scientist in her head and heart.

 Megan runs through project notes with Bhavin Parmar

Although it wasn’t formal in the true sense of the word, she and JMS arranged it so that Megan continued to work part time as a Structural Engineering CAD Technician. 


Give and take

Like many STEM students (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), Megan's CAD experience from school enabled a swift progression to Auto CAD during her productive hours at JMS.

The team structured time to introduce Megan to all areas of Structural Design and the technical build concepts that furnish JMS with the experience and skills to engineer the solutions that make a construction project deliverable safely, within cost and on time.

Two years and 3 A levels later and the next lifestyle model suggests that University is the next step – or is it. Science had been her passion and academic strength so such a degree would surely be the natural progression. But when JMS offered a formal apprenticeship scheme, another vocational door opened.

Structural and Civil Engineering is a science that literally shapes the world. Civil Engineering is responsible for planning, designing and building society’s essential infrastructure, taking a leading role in maintaining the quality of our personal and professional lives.

 The combination of college tutorial and vocational application is inspiring

Not surprisingly, Megan accepted the position, now an apprentice within the Civil Engineering team and about to start a Level 5 HND in ‘Construction and the Built Environment’ at Leicester College.

Her apprenticeship will take her through all departments, all specialities and all of the regional JMS offices and prepare her for a Bachelor’s in Civil Engineering in two years. 

Megan Nicholson is not the first and most certainly will not be the last apprentice to benefit from JMS’s progressive approach to developing skills within the engineering community and within JMS itself.

Great story Megan – thank you.

We add value to every project we have been,
are, and will be equally proud to support.

 

Blue and Blue / Green Roof Attenuation - option or necessity?

Roof-top SuDS 

Increasing urbanisation and climate change have a massive impact of drainage and sewage systems that will worsen rather than go away. That’s why David, Bhav, Deanna and Ben particularly enjoyed and benefited from a recent presentation by Polypipe, eponymous drainage systems specialists.

The subject was green and blue roofs and their crucial part in urban planning and design. “We felt this is very much the direction planners will be pushing future surface water drainage designs” commented Ben. 

Engineers must improve strategies to mitigate flood events as part of a wider SuDS strategy if cities are to survive and perhaps even benefit from water run-off. ‘Source control’ is becoming the most important factor of SuDS strategy – managing rain water at the point it fall. 

Instead of channelling it away quickly into our busy underground drainage infrastructure, rainwater is stored where it falls and released or used with control. 

                                                      85mm Permavoid being fitted in a Blue Roof project

As there is more roof surface area in congested cities that road space, source control needs to be managed at roof level. Two basic types of SuDS engineering solutions are referred to as Blue and Blue / Green.

                                                                               Blue Roof

Ben noted that: “We (JMS) recently designed a Blue Roof scheme in Whetstone with a basement car park which took up almost the entire site.  How can we provide the required storage?  Answer - on the roof”.  

Shallow attenuation systems were used to attenuate on the roof where low diameter outlets hold the flows back and releases it at a reduced flow rate back into the underground system.

                                                              Blue / Green Roof

Blue / Green Roof source management captures and stores the water for re-use to irrigate lawns and plants grown at roof level. Polypipe have a patented ‘passive irrigation’ system that creates a more natural environment for sustainable growth.  

The benefits are greater than SuDS management. Extended developments of green roofs affect urban temperature regulations; improve air quality; provide carbon storage; and offer habitat, amenity and recreational facilities.

Ben said: “Already in one situation I have actually been asked to consider roof attenuation during the planning process, indicating that roof/podium storage is becoming a necessity rather than an option wherever possible”.

 The system is now commonly known as a blue roof and is used most effectively in conjunction with a green roof because it slows flows and attenuation feeds the green. Ben again: “ In one case Polypipe told us of a fruit and veg shop that was looking to grow its own produce on the roof!”

Inspiring – Thank you Ben

 

 

We add value to every project we have been,
are, and will be equally proud to support.

 

STEM - Investing in our engineering future

STEM: Today's youth, 
tomorrow's engineers

David Brunning with year 3 pupils at Hillside Primary School

JMS Engineers has long been an advocate of investing in and supporting excellence in its field of Structural and Civil Engineering. 

Our local offices in Chelmsford, Ipswich, Norwich and Leicester have developed relationships with their respective universities to encourage the next generations of talent. 

By demonstrating and mentoring real opportunities, students see achievable goals to develop their professional aspirations in this ever changing world of engineering.

Desks, guidance and opportunities have been made available to undergraduates for work experience and apprenticeship practice with great and mutual success.

Being a STEM Ambassador

Now David Brunning, part of the Civil Engineering team at JMS’ Head Office, is being actively supported by Daniel Staines in his own ambitions to guide the future of engineering distinction as a STEM Ambassador.

STEM Ambassadors are volunteers from a wide range of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) related jobs and disciplines across the UK. They offer their time and enthusiasm to help bring STEM subjects to life and demonstrate their valuein life and careers.

As a STEM Ambassador, David has the opportunity to engage and inspire young people learning about science, technology, engineering and mathematics. He’ll help encourage students to consider further study of STEM subjects, particularly engineering, and guide their progression into related careers.

“It’s about inspiring the next generation of STEM professionals” said David. “We can show them just how practical and vocational their studies are now by relating what they’re learning to practical applications in the field. It sounds like a chore, but really the interaction with such enthusiastic young people is a lot of fun.”

It is David’s professional skills and personal objectivity that facilitated his move to JMS earlier this year. An Eng Tech MICE, David’s heart and soul already drive the professional qualities embedded in JMS, centrally at Brightwell Barns and nationally (internationally) across its regional offices.

STEM Ambassadors have been referred to as “...a UK national treasure” helping to bring STEM subjects to life by adding context and cutting edge applications to theory.

To help introduce learning in the context of Civil Engineering, the ICE have produced this video:

 

The interaction between David, school teachers and school students helps the teachers understand how, for example, mathematics is applied in Civil Engineering projects so they can put a practical slant into their teaching plans. 

It's a win win opportunity

And the advantages of shared experiences work both ways. evidence shows that being a STEM Ambassador provides volunteers with a better understanding of education, increases their professionalism, confidence, enthusiasm and motivation while improving their organisational, communication, team-working and leadership skills.

The impact on young people, prospective employers, teachers, STEM Ambassadors and their employers has been enormous across the board. It has been recorded that young people are greatly influenced by Ambassadors like David, increasingly pursuing STEM study post-16 and progressing into STEM-related careers.

A survey across a wide range of educational participants in the STEM process showed a 90% increase in young people’s engagement in STEM. Their awareness of the scheme’s importance increased by 89%. Their general learning and understanding of the values of subjects within the genres of science, technology, engineering and mathematics is already bearing fruit – as the diagram below illustrates:

"Giving back to build tomorrow’s professional engineers is as good as it gets" – good luck David and well done JMS for encouraging learning and professionalism.

We add value to every project we have been,
are, and will be equally proud to support.