ANNOUNCEMENT: Royal Academy of Engineering "Ingenious" Award.

We are very excited to announce that The School Gate SET has been awarded an RAE "Ingenious" grant! This awards scheme supports innovative projects that engage the public with engineers and engineering.

awards scheme for projects that engage the public with engineers and engineering - See more at: http://www.raeng.org.uk/grants-and-prizes/ingenious-grant#sthash.6Bta37Yo.dpuf

Over the next three months we will be recruiting 40 career-break engineers, technologists and technicians whose children are in primary school. As well as the existing School Gate SET activities: building a relationship with their children's school and supporting the STEM curriculum; these parent volunteers will be invited to register as STEM ambassadors and to attend specially designed training workshops.

These free workshops will be held in participating schools in Autumn 2016, during the school day. They have been developed by project co-ordinator, Kate Bellingham and certified Gallup Strengths Coach, Jan Peters, both long-time champions for women's participation in science and technology. The agenda will include:

• ice breakers & experience sharing
• strengths awareness
• introduction to a technical hands-on activity along with advice on how to deliver this to pupils with different learning styles/backgrounds.

Participating parents will also be encouraged to (re)connect with professional organisations, such as the Women's Engineering Society (WES), The IET or The IMechE, who can suggest opportunities to resume their career in a way that fits in with family life.

To minimise travel costs, these workshops will initially be running in Hertfordshire and Dorset, but we want the School Gate SET to keep growing, nationwide, and will continue to provide online support, activity ideas and mentoring.