Design & Engineering Scholarships for QE boys

Two year 12 pupils at Queen Elizabeth’s School have been awarded prestigious Arkwright Scholarships.

Vignesh Gopalan (below) and Mehul Jesani (pictured left) secured the valuable engineering awards after a rigorous selection process in Year 11. Funded by a charity, the Arkwright Scholarship Trust, the scholarships are awarded to high-ability students to support them in their Sixth Form studies. The aim is to identify and nurture future leaders in engineering and related areas of design, encouraging them to pursue engineering at university and in their careers.

“We are very pleased that Vignesh and Mehul have gained Arkwright Scholarships,” said the School’s Head of Design, Simon Vincent. “The Arkwright Scholarship Trust encourages its scholars to act as ambassadors of flourishing Design and Technology departments in their schools, and the boys have joined a growing roll of QE pupils who have achieved that aim.”

The award is £500 per annum: £300 goes to the student and £200 to the student’s school’s Technology department to be spent on equipment or resources. The scholarship runs over two years and is reviewed at the end of the first year.

The selection process requires candidates to make a detailed application, to sit an aptitude paper and to be interviewed. During the interview, students present their GCSE project work to a panel of interviewers and discuss their commitment to design, engineering and technology.

The Arkwright Scholarships were established in 1991, when a group of committed headteachers decided to take action to increase the profile of Design & Technology. The charity was named after the 18th Century engineer, Sir Richard Arkwright (1732 – 1792), who perfected the water frame (a machine for spinning textiles that is powered by a water wheel) and is widely regarded as the father of the modern factory system. Last year the trust awarded 298 Sixth Form Scholarships nationally and introduced a new undergraduate Scholarship.