Green Careers Week - Rampion Wind Farm

Rampion Wind Farm - Visitor Centre Open Doors Trip - Thursday 7^th November

As part of Green Careers Week we were lucky enough to be given the opportunity to take a small group of our Year 9 students along to the Rampion Visitor Centre in Brighton.  

This centre is open to the public at weekends and during school holidays, it's free to visit and is a fascinating place to go to learn more about wind power, renewable energy and climate change. As part of Green Careers Week our visit was focussed on the different jobs that are on offer at Rampion as well as learning more about renewable energy in general.  

The group learnt about the construction of the Rampion wind farm, how the turbines work, what the different parts of the turbine are called, how each part of the turbine works, how they are maintained by the Rampion team, as well as learning about the different job roles that Rampion offer and their apprenticeship programme.

The visitor centre houses exhibitions, interactive displays, games and videos, as well as a 360o virtual reality (VR) experience that all our students got to try which took them out on to a virtual wind turbine in the wind farm.  This was definitely a highlight of the trip!

After everyone had tried the VR we regrouped and heard from three employees from Rampion who told the group about the jobs they do and their career path from leaving school to their Rampion job role.  It was really interesting to see the variety of job roles that each staff member had held in the past and how their paths, though very different, had led them all to working in the renewable energy sector.  There was a focus on transferrable skills and highlighting the importance of skills along side qualifications.

Rampion take on two Apprentice Wind Turbine Engineers every year.  The three-year school leaver apprenticeship involves spending two years in a classroom-based environment in Wales at Llandrillo College with the third year working at the Rampion Newhaven site.  Upon completion the Apprentice will have a NVQ Level 3 qualification in wind turbine operations and maintenance and a level 3 diploma in wind turbine maintenance. Anyone interested in learning more about this should look at the Rampion Website.  

If students are interested in a future career with Rampion or other renewable energy providers, then please click on the links below to learn more and to see what opportunities are available or search 'green careers' on Unifrog to learn about green careers in general and hear from other employers in this sector.

RWE Careers Portal

Faces of Wind Energy

Railway Land Green Careers

Thanks to Miss Martin for accompanying the group today and to the Year 9 students who represented Chailey School and our values with enthusiasm and gusto.