‘OUT OF this world’ is the only way to describe the latest guest as the Oldham Athletic Community Trust welcomed a visit from Professor Brian Cox.
Speaking at Boundary Park’s event centre, Chadderton’s most eminent physicist and broadcaster, who once lived in Lydgate, was excited to be back home – and even more so to launch a new scheme to encourage the next generation of scientists.
The Active Science in Schools Project is delivered by the Latic’s body in partnership with AstraZeneca and combines physical activity with scientific learning to make STEM subjects more engaging and accessible for children across Oldham.
The six-week project will launch in six primary schools in the next academic year, before spreading to all across the region.
Having already spent the afternoon at a session with local students, Professor Cox said there was “no shortage” of talent among the children of Oldham, and said he had been blown away by the students’ enthusiasm.
“Quite a few came up to me and said, ‘we want to do what you’ve done, we want to be astronomers, we want to be scientists’,” Professor Cox said of the visit. “So there’s certainly the ambition there.
“You have a place here, it’s very close to the big universities in Manchester, but you have this untapped potential. [Oldham has] the most young people in the Greater Manchester region, and you’ve got these incredibly talented, curious young people waiting to do wonderful things.
“It seems to me the raw materials are here. It therefore makes sense to invest.”
Professor Cox was joined in a panel discussion by Oldham Athletic Community Trust’s chief executive Sandy Mitchell alongside Greater Science Share founder Dr Lynne Bianchi, AstraZeneca UK chairman Shaun Grady and Oldham Council’s director of growth James Kington.
Speaking at the launch, Mr Kington described the benefits the scheme could bring to both young people and the local economy.
“It’s really important that we give our young people the skills to flourish going forward, and that they get those good jobs.
“That doesn’t just mean for really senior jobs; that understanding of science and technology goes so deep down into everyone’s jobs nowadays – be that engaging with AI, be that engaging with technology in the day-to-day workforce – that we need to make sure those skills are deeply embedded.
“The better and more skilled our workforce, the better our businesses will do,” he continued. And the better our businesses do, the more jobs will come to Oldham because people will look for that skilled workforce.
“Not every person has to live in Oldham – but they can live in Oldham and go and work in great jobs.”
So how many lemons does it take to light a light bulb? According to the kids of Oldham, three or four – and it depends how bright you want the bulb.
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