Education

Williams continues to support a range of educational initiatives: vocational and academic and from primary to tertiary. This support has varied, from providing financial bursaries (for instance for PhD students at Cranfield University) to assisting with curricula development (Oxford Brookes University) as well as annual vocational placement schemes for secondary school pupils and an active apprenticeship scheme.

In 2009, Williams formed a joint venture with Cambridge University Press, one of the world’s leading and most established educational publishers. Combining attractiveness of Formula One to school children and educational software expertise of Cambridge University Press, the partnership created Race to Learn, a Formula One-themed interactive educational software product for use as a teaching tool aimed at 9 to 11 year olds.

The product provides cross-curricular learning for Year 5 & 6 pupils providing 12 half-days of teaching support in many subject areas.

It uses a range of multimedia content including real Formula One footage to provide a context to promote teamwork and teach group working skills. In small groups, children make racing teams and learn to work together on activities that include designing a logo, investigating air resistance by experiment, designing aspects of a racing car, and pitching for sponsorship – all based on real Formula One team pursuits.

Designed for interactive whiteboards, Race to Learn covers key curriculum topics – Science, Maths, Literacy, Geography, PSHE, Design & Technology, Physical Education – with each one linked to the relevant National Curriculum/Framework objectives.

Six months after its UK launch, Race to Learn won a major industry award, the British Education & Technology Training (BETT) Award for Primary Digital Content. It was commended by the BETT award judges as containing “superb ativities that are highly engaging for children” and “with helpful teacher introduction and age-appropriate activities, Race to Learn is well thought through support for cross-curricular learning.”

Race to Learn has also been strongly endorsed by the teaching profession and the education media. Reviewed recently in the leading trade title, Teach Primary! the product scored 10/10 and attracted commendations including “the activities have been carefully thought out and the children loved them.”

Both Williams and Cambridge University Press have commenced community projects to help provide Race to Learn to local classrooms. In Oxfordshire, Williams have donated Race to Learn to ten schools with company staff visiting the classroom. These visits are immensely popular with the children, who have endless questions to ask a practicing professional. The experience has been equally rewarding for Williams staff who have valued an opportunity to give back to the community.

Outside of these local projects, an encouraging early sign of adoption has been agreement with the London Grid for Learning to provide online access to Race to Learn for more than 2000 participating Primary schools within Greater London. The initial success of Race to Learn has encouraged Williams F1 and Cambridge University Press to expand the project overseas with foreign language versions currently in development.