Colchester Construction Sector Taster Day

On Monday 20th June, 80 students from schools in and around Colchester came to the Board’s ‘Construction Taster Day’, held at Firstsite.

Year 8 and 9 students from Thomas Lord Audley, Philip Morant, Stanway and Tendring Technology College attended to hear from some of the local companies that they may well be working for in years to come and to take part in some fun activities, led by those same firms.

The day began with an introduction from Essex County Council about the work they plan to do with schools next year, including work experience and a week-long Construction School. This was followed by a talk from Jason Page at Ingleton Wood about the advances in technology in the Construction sector. Students then broke off into smaller groups to rotate around four industry-led sessions, led by Morgan Sindall, Ingleton Wood, Barnes Construction and the Construction and Industry Training Board (CITB).

Morgan Sindall talked to pupils about the role of the Quantity Surveyor, Barnes Construction about dispelling some of the myths about working in the sector, Ingleton Wood showed off some VR equipment and asked pupils to design a construction related app and CITB gave students an exciting, LEGO-based challenge aimed at highlighting project management in construction. Feedback from students and teachers has been excellent, and it is our intention now to work with the students that attended the Taster Day next year – with Year 9 students we will be focusing on CREST Awards (alongside the CITB) and with year 10 pupils plans to arrange experiences of work in the Construction sector. We would like to thank all companies and schools that took part in this exciting event for making it such an enjoyable day and a wonderful success.