Aviation Education Programme - Introduction Day Update

Here at Aerobility, we are working hard to develop new services to ensure that aviation is accessible for all. Below is a report, written by one of our volunteers Tony, about our new Aviation Education Programme. This is a year long course funded by Children In Need for six young people, designed to introduce them to aviation and all of its various components. 

"We recently held the Introduction Day for our new Aviation Education Programme. Five of the six young participants and their family members attended an initial session, to welcome them to the programme and to those of us involved in preparing and delivering the course over the current school year. The sixth participant had attended a briefing by Geri the previous day, due to other commitments.

The session opened with a presentation by Geri explaining the plan for the day, together with an outline of the various course subjects to be covered in the modular programme. There will be five modules covering Airfield Operations, Air Traffic Control, Fire and Rescue, Aircraft Engineering, and “How We fly”. Geri then took the family members to the briefing room to complete the necessary paperwork on course monitoring and to discuss course scheduling.

Meanwhile, the students were being introduced to the course 

by the volunteer team and informally assessed as to their understanding of the proposed module content and detail. This was also a chance to establish any requirement for assistance with reading, writing and comprehension. The group completed an activity designed to establish the students’ existing level of knowledge of the subject matter, and their individual capacity for observation and logical thinking. 

It consisted of a video showing our CFI James arriving on site and preparing for a flight up to the point of taxying from the parking area, after which the students were invited to comment on it and to pinpoint any anomalies they may have noticed in the film.

There were two deliberate errors included, both of which were observed by the students if not by one or two of the volunteers - we jest, of course!

There then followed an exercise in which each student was given a set of still photographs taken from the video and required to arrange them in their logical sequence as shown in the film, and to answer a question relative to each picture. 

The family members were subsequently re-united with the students to “compete” against each other in pairs in a light-hearted aviation quiz, after which the winning student was presented with a souvenir of the occasion.

Geri then brought the session to a close by thanking the students and their family members for attending, and received good, positive feedback from everyone present. The next stage of the project will involve the finalisation of the programme schedule in discussion with the students and their families."

Thank you to Tony for this update - we'll let you know how the next sessions go. Its Airfield Ops and Air Traffic Control this week!