King's School Sixth Form student Finlay Buckley is hoping his Arkwright Scholarship will take him into tomorrow's world.  

Brilliant academic Finlay, 16, from Rainow, who got 11 GCSEs, including four 9s and five 8s, earned one of 200 top engineering scholarships from over 2,000 applicants nationwide.  

As well as winning £250, for each of his two years in the top Macclesfield Sixth Form, Finlay believes winning the award will bolster his CV and create a vast range of networking opportunities. 

He said: "I don't particularly want to pursue the traditional route of a university degree, but rather a degree-apprenticeship with a top national company. That way I get the same academic qualification with hands on work experience, which I believe will be more useful in any future career."

The scholarship is named after one of the great pioneers of the Industrial Revolution, Derbyshire entrepreneur Sir Richard Arkwright, who invented the spinning frame and the water frame and had factories across the North West supplying textiles to the world. 

To impress a distinguished panel of judges, Finlay first completed a formal application, then sat a two-hour exam in which he designed a mini snow-gritter to help keep pathways clear, before getting selected for an interview where he had to give a presentation.

He said: "I based the snow-gritter on a lawnmower, adding an inertial governor on the shaft and replaced the blades with a disk to create an even distribution."

He also designed a sports ball target-return mechanism using a combination of nets and gondolas to send the ball to the player with he or she able to practice without trudging around the court.

Finlay, who has been operating state-of-the-art lathes since he was just 10, has a fascination with complex machinery and has taken tours of the Boeing factory in Seattle and the Airbus factory in Toulouse. He also co-piloted a light aircraft at the age of 12. 

Finlay is currently studying A Level Design Technology, Maths, Further Maths and Chemistry and has a range of ambitions including city based architecture, helping to design and build sky scrapers in the confines of the urban sprawl and, perhaps, also designing the next generation aerospace engines.

Finlay, who plays ice hockey for the Manchester Storm Academy and captains the King's School 2nd XI field hockey team, will go to Newcastle upon Tyne to receive his award and meet prospective engineering company recruiters later in the Autumn.

King's students have won the Arkwright Scholarship seven times since it was introduced in 1991, with Finlay's success is the first since COVID.

Design and Technology teacher Gareth Steele, who is the King's School's Arkwright coordinator, said: "Finlay combines both immense engineeringand technical creativity with exacting attention to detail and hard work."

He added: "The Arkwright Engineering Scholarship, the most esteemed of its kind in the UK, opens doors for aspiring engineers like Finlay, empowering them to shape the suture with innovation and excellence." 

King's School Macclesfield is located on Alderley Road, Prestbury.

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