Students at Ingleby Mill Primary School have been given the opportunity to decide how their school will spend a £2000 donation received from Billingham based water and wastewater treatment specialists Biochemica Water.
John Fraser, Managing Director of the firm, was joined by NEPIC Chief Executive and former Labour MP for Hartlepool Iain Wright on a visit of the Ingleby Barwick school earlier this week. They were greeted by the excitable students with an assembly in their honour, where Iain announced the donation of £2000.
Biochemica Water received the £2000 prize when they won the Small Business of the Year award at the NEPIC Annual Awards dinner back in January. NEPIC provide all their winners with a cheque of £2000 to be donated to a school of their choice to support STEM related projects, something they have been doing since 2007.
Ingleby Mill headteacher Mrs Atkinson spoke of her delight at receiving the donation and mentioned that she will give the children the opportunity to share ideas on how the money should be spent.
“It’s overwhelming really that they (NEPIC and Biochemica Water) thought of us, I want to say a huge thank you.
“This gives the school a huge opportunity to do something extra!”
When asked about giving the children the chance to decide what the money should be spent on, Mrs Atkinson added “We would absolutely love the children to have a voice in it and make some decisions with us about doing something towards promoting science and engineering in the school.”
The decision to donate the £2000 to Ingleby Mill Primary School was an easy one for Biochemica Water Managing Director John Fraser, who was a governor at the school for four years.
“When NEPIC asked for us to provide them with a school to donate the £2000 to, the decision was easy for me. Having been a governor at the school for four years, I have seen first hand the work the school does to develop their students.
“I have no doubt that this £2000 will be spent wisely and the opportunity Mrs Atkinson is giving the students to help decide what to spend it on is a great initiative and really involves the students in their development.
“I would love the money to be spent on promoting science and engineering in schools and who knows, maybe one day we could be employing a student who benefitted from the £2000.”
Since the NEPIC Annual Awards started in 2007, 60 local schools have benefitted from £122,000 in prize money.