Our Year 11 Business students spent a fabulous morning at the amazing Network Rail corporate office at The Quadrant in Milton Keynes. Hosted by cohorts of degree apprentices and graduates, we were treated to a tour of the building, which is brilliantly designed with work spaces such as pods and event rooms and includes a Gym, Mothers’ Room and Occupational Health Centre. Our first activity was to code a track to accommodate train speed, different destinations, tunnels and railway obstructions. The students were then divided into teams for a version of The Apprentice! The Task was to identify a real problem in rail travel and design and innovative product or technology that could transform the industry. Each team would form a start up with access to a government backed innovation fund and the concept needed to link to Network Rail’s values of Better, Simpler, Greener. The students came up with some fantastic ideas including:
• A Green Network Train which would provide a carriage with exercise facilities, which in turn would generate energy. Using an app, passengers could gain benefit points to be used on ticket purchases.
• A Solar Powered Security Scanner to address the real problem of train violence.
• BASE – an App allowing passengers to access data on every train’s CO2 emissions alongside developing hybrid trains using solar powered energy.
This Task is similar to those used at recruitment Assessment Centres and each group was given constructive feedback with the emphasis on how teams worked together to present their ideas being more important than the concept. The winning team was BASE and the winning apprentice was Andrea!
