Among this group of grammar school students may be a future RSL employee - that’s always our hope when we welcome schools at our facilities.

Executive Director NCS and IDS Richard Daniel hosted this particular visit of 20 students and two teachers from King Edward VI Grammar School to Harlow on Tuesday19th February.

King Edward’s, based in Chelmsford, is not only local to our Harlow facility but is an enthusiastic participant in the RSL-sponsored Schools’ Aerospace Challenge competition.

The school entered three teams in 2007 and one of them, Flying Circus, won the £5000 prize. At the formal presentation in London last November, Richard invited the winning team and interested fellow students to visit Harlow to get a better insight into RSL’s work.

Richard introduced the RSL team, including Engineering Director Mandy Savage, before giving an overview of our activities at Harlow. The students then enjoyed a guided tour of the ATMS and IFF cells on the shop floor by Cell Leader Derek Stopher.

Back in the Pinnacles Conference Room, the students were a given brief overview of RSL’s technology by Head of Technology Peter Langsford. Principal ATC Systems Engineer Dave Spalding spoke about ADS-B and Systems Authority for Navigation Systems Peter McIlroy gave them a brief about Anti-Jam GPS.

At lunch the party was joined by Systems Engineer Andy Pursey, who mentored the Schools’ Aerospace Challenge teams at Cranfield last summer, and Richard Bolger, who is the HR business partner for Engineering.

This particular group of students are already interested in maths and science as a career, and it is hoped that by giving them an insight into RSL and the career opportunities available within the company, we will have further spurred them on in the direction of a career in engineering