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Children Challenging Industry

CIEC’s Children Challenging Industry (CCI) Programme is a flagship initiative that connects primary schools with local STEM companies through a comprehensive package of activities designed to engage young learners, support teachers, and help businesses build stronger community ties.

The CCI programme Includes:

  • Tailored Classroom Activities – Designed around your company, helping children link science learning to real-world applications.
  • Industry Site Visits – Children visit your site to see STEM careers in action and understand industry processes. 
  • Teacher Development– Upskilling primary school teachers with knowledge of industry practices and careers, to strengthen STEM education.
  • Industry Communications Training – Helping your employees develop the skills to engage effectively with young audiences.
  • Sustainability Stories - Online publications telling industry stories and sharing industry careers, through the lens of the National Curriculum for science.

While many partners choose to sponsor local schools' participation in the full CCI Programme, each element is available as a standalone opportunity to suit your company’s goals. You can choose a specific aspect, such as industry communications training or sustainability story integration, to align with your ESG goals and outreach strategies.

Where visits to company premises are not possible, we develop interactive classroom activities for your STEM professionals to take into schools.

Packages start at £3,000.

Impact of CCI

Evaluation report

Read the latest national project data detailing the impact of the CCI programme on children and their teachers.

Case studies

CCI pupils become engineers and CCI ambassadors

Read about Kaitlyn (left; Information Technology Systems), who took part in the CCI programme in the 2000s at primary school. Catch up with Rebecca (right; Fujifilm Biotechnologies) who was inspired by an industry visit. Both are now engineers and CCI ambassadors.

One company's CCI story

Watch the video and read about how one biotechnology company, Sartorius, has supported thousands of children through the CCI programme and welcomed hundreds onto their site.

Feedback

Video

What do the children say?

Watch children talk about their CCI experiences and read quotes gathered from their anonymised feedback.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOlQLp0SW0Y
Video

What do the teachers say?

Read teachers’ feedback on their involvement in the programme and see their CCI CPD in pictures.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os-GJj8lzHs
Video

How do STEM professionals engage with children?

Following training from the CIEC team, STEM professionals become CCI ambassadors and work with us to create a range of exciting ways of sharing their company’s science and engineering with primary children.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRTvehZzOis

I have never felt so personally rewarded in showing off our manufacturing building to a group of visitors in the last ten years. The children were the most energetic, quizzical group, with an infectious enthusiasm to learn, to understand what we do as scientists at Fujifilm Biotechnologies.

Neil Burke, Manager at Fujifilm Biotechnologies

The children were really enthused by the apprentices, and I think it helped them to realise that what we learn in school does have an impact on their life, particularly if that was the sort of career that the children considered. Lots of the children thought that they were really 'cool', and wanted to be like them because their job sounded fun and interesting.

Primary teacher