The man who has led plans to open Havering’s newest school has said that his aim is to make its students “stand head and shoulders above everyone else”.

Last month, the Department for Education gave the green light to plans for a new University Technical College (UTC) in Rainham.

The facility has been planned by the Centre for Engineering and Manufacturing Excellence (CEME), in Marsh Way, with partners including University College London, Loughborough University, Ford and Network Rail.

The UTC, which will be called ELUTec, is scheduled to open in 2013 and will take in students aged from 14 to 19, teaching them vocational skills, on top of a standard curriculum.

CEME chief executive Bill Williams told the Recorder last week that work is currently going on to appoint the school’s governing body, followed by a headteacher who should be in place by January.

He admitted that the biggest challenge the school will initially face is attracting children to join.

“They’ll be choosing their options at GCSE, and will be able to go to a new school, but it is somewhere with no track record, and we can’t say what the building is going to be like because it doesn’t exist yet.

“But it will be for people with a real interest in making things, and they will get to work with people from industry.

“It will be teachers from the school who will be teaching them, but people from industry will be on hand to add to the experience.”

He added: “We have Network Rail and Ford, we have reached an agreement in principle with BP.”

Plans for the teenagers include giving them realistic tasks such as they would face in industry and project management situations.

Despite the involvement of businesses in setting up the school, the headteacher will be in charge of choosing the curriculum, and would be able to end ELUTec’s relationship with particular businesses if he or she felt that they weren’t working.

Speaking about the mixture of vocational and educational training that the school will offer, Mr Williams added: “We want those kids to stand head and shoulders above everyone else, when they apply for a job, when they get their job we want them to stand head and shoulders above everyone else there, and if they go on to further or higher education we want them to stand head and shoulders above everyone else in terms of their maturity and the training they’ve already had.”

Anyone wishing to register their child’s interest in attending the school should visit www.elutec.co.uk.