Over the past thirty years, education in schools has slowly moved away from a practical approach to learning in favour of a desk based theoretical approach.

This is mainly due to funding constraints and having to follow a curriculum that focuses on academic results in favour of the more practical skills.

This is now showing itself in a miss-match of skills and experience when the pupils leave school, search for a job or move into an apprenticeships.

This lecture outlined my workshops aim to tackle and help the pupils realise the gap between theory and practical learning by giving them a chance to create and build an item or design that requires not only the application of maths and physics, but also hands on practical construction skills in the use of materials to create a prototype of their own design, and to follow a real world design and process.

• Organisation