Plessey partners with Ivybridge Community College

Category: CSR, Events, News
Nov 27, 2023

Four employees visited the school to deliver a Careers Assembly to Year 9 students to celebrate our new School Employer Partnership with Ivybridge Community College. We gave the students an overview of Plessey, our technology, and the careers and pathways available at our company. We then went to a workshop with a group of year 10s and Sixth Form students, where we went into more depth and let them hear from Ben, a graduate device engineer, and Jack, an equipment engineer who did an apprenticeship at Plessey. This gave the students a broader view of how people become engineers at Plessey. We also brought along some demonstration wafers so students could get a closer look at what we use to make microLEDs and have a go at handling them. This is the first of several events with Ivybridge Community College as part of our partnership and our new Early Careers Programme.

Imogen Martin, Assistant Principal: Sixth Form and Careers at Ivybridge Community College, stated, “We are extremely excited about our new School Partnership with Plessey.  It is very important for us as a school to develop strong links with key local employers, who can offer our students ‘real life’ encounters and invaluable experiences of the workplace.  We are very much looking forward to the Plessey team coming into school again this year, delivering workshops to students during our Science Week and attending our annual Careers Fair in March.”

Mark Gray, Learning and Development Manager at Plessey, said, “Partnering with Ivybridge Community College as part of our early careers programme is key to inspiring and encouraging our future employees. Taking part in various activities at the college will enable students to get a real insight into the careers available at Plessey and the Micro LED industry. We are very much looking forward to our next event at the college”.

That afternoon, we were then able to strengthen our partnership further with a donation of two 3D printers. Our product team found they were no longer using two printers that were in great condition. As a result, we were able to donate them to the Design Technology team at Ivybridge Community College, who were very happy to increase their capacity for one of the most sought-after activities. In addition to the printers, we gave them a stock of resin, a form wash and form cure set, and some models to show the printers’ capabilities.