Better Learners, Better Workers

We are helping to build the next generation of construction workers.

In collaboration with our partners, Sheffield City Council and Keepmoat, students from Chaucer School and Park Academy, were welcomed to our Beckett Hill development at Malthouses in the city.

Organised through the Better Learners, Better Workers (BLBW) programme, the year 9 students aged between 13 - 14 visited the site. They met with Andy Poole, Site Manager with Keepmoat, Shellie Hope, Social Value Manager with Keepmoat and Nichola Burkinshaw Project Support and Development Officer at Sheffield City Council, to get an overview of the processes involved in construction and the wide variety of jobs roles and personnel required to deliver a new build housing development.

BLBW is an employer-led programme that provides young people with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes they will need to be successful professionally and personally. It has been designed to enable schools to meet the Gatsby Benchmarks for good careers guidance in line with the Department for Education's ‘Careers strategy: making the most of everyone's skills and talents'.

Steve Birch, Development Director at SHC, said: “We and our partners are proud to be able to support initiatives like this. It is important that we encourage the next generation of the construction workforce, by demonstrating the wide and varying opportunities and job roles available.”

At the heart of BLBW are student / ambassadors which encompass pupils from Y5, Y6, Y9 and Special Educational Needs Settings SEND.

Nichola Burkinshaw, Project Support and Development Officer with Sheffield Opportunity, part of Sheffield City Council, said:  “All nineteen ambassadors from the schools really enjoyed the visit. They asked meaningful questions and a couple of the students had a clear direction of the career path they want to pursue.

“Through BLBW students / ambassadors enjoy a range of high-quality employer encounters, experiences and challenges, both in school and in the workplace, to develop their job-ready skills and behaviours.”

We and our partnering organisations have helped to deliver 184 educational based curriculum activities (including site visits) to date.