Shortfall of Black Country engineers 'a nonsense', says Lord

Lord Puttnam, who produced Chariots of Fire and The Mission, said he would expect the region to have more engineering graduates because of the area's industrial heritage.

He added he believed the way science and mathematics subjects were taught did not inspire enough students to continue with them after leaving school.

During the visit to Shireland Collegiate Academy, Smethwick, The Labour peer complimented how fortunate the youngsters were at the Waterloo Road school to benefit from the way technology is integrated into their daily curriculum.

The current Chancellor of the Open University and chairman of Atticus Education, an online education company based in Ireland, has been working in the profession for around 20 years.

He said: "In this country, we've got a massive problem of not having enough engineering graduates. The stem subjects are not taught in a sufficient compelling way to retain some young people.

Lord Puttnam was shown Year 7 lessons during his visit to the school and remarked how impressed he was with the principles guiding the pupils' timetable.

They have 17 hours each week spent learning so-called theoretical subjects like English and geography - all with the same teacher in the mornings - before practical sessions in areas like design and PE in the afternoons.

The idea is by having the same teacher, that professional is more familiar with ways to engage with each pupil in the way they prefer to learn and they make progress more quickly.

This familiarity is underpinned by the use of laptops and modern programmes such as One Word and Solid Works, a computer-aided design programme, used by engineering professionals.

Lord Puttnam added: "This is a very sophisticated way of doing things. Youngsters at Shireland are very fortunate with what's going on here as it's pretty unusual in my view - and I visit schools up and down the country in my work all the time."

He added he believed the next field which he hoped the education profession could better explore in future was triggers in the human mind.

He said the idea that babies learn particularly quickly and continue to do so until at least the age of three had never truly been explained, nor the implications of what might be done to capitalise on that. He also wanted to see more research into what happened to the brain after the age of three and what triggers could be best used to explore the mind's full potential in the years to follow.

He added: "The plasticity of the brain is fascinating and by 2025 I predict that brain science will be playing a big role in education."

The school's executive principal Sir Mark Grundy said he was delighted to receive such compliments from the peer.

He added: "The work we are doing is nothing other schools couldn't do. We're just using our budget and thinking differently."

Lord Puttnam's recent career has been spent a s a leading education figure, having founding the National Teaching Awards in 1998 and also serving as the first chairman of the General Teaching Council from 2000 to 2002.

He has also served as Chancellor of the Open University, a post to which he was appointed in 2006, following ten years as Chancellor of The University of Sunderland.

But he will be best known as his extensive filmmaking career which spanned more than three decades.

A career highlight came when he produced Chariots of Fire in 1981 which went onto win the best picture honour at the Oscars.

His other award winning films include The Mission, The Killing Fields, Midnight Express, Bugsy Malone and Memphis Belle.

In total his pictures won ten Oscars, 25 Baftas and the Palme D'Or at Cannes - leading him to be recognised with the BAFTA Fellowship honour in 2006.

As he brought his filmmaking career to a close he was named a peer by the Labour government in 1997. He has also combined his life as Westminster with with a role as deputy chairman of Channel 4 Television from 2006 until January 2012.