It’s not all Bricks and Mortar

More than 300 school children from 11 secondary schools in Sandwell attended a Construction Awareness Event this week at the West Bromwich Albion football ground. The Sandwell Decent Homes Partnership hosted the event in order to educate school children from around the borough of Sandwell about employment opportunities within the UK construction industry.

The day was also a chance for the Partnership to tackle the national skills shortage at a local level by highlighting the wide variety of jobs available to the borough’s school leavers. The Sandwell Decent Homes Partnership (SDHP) is a construction framework tasked with ‘decent homes’ refurbishment of 30,000 homes in Sandwell. The Partnership is made up of Thomas Vale Construction and other partners.

The event showcased over 60 different roles including the traditional trades, architects, structural engineers, customer service liaisons, managers and sustainability officers. With representatives from the Partnership’s main contractors and local supply chain partners on hand, pupils had a great opportunity to meet and talk to a broad mix of apprentices and construction workers from the industry.

John Clayton, Investment Director for the Partnership commented:

“Regenerating Sandwell is about more than just bricks and mortar; it is about extending opportunity to all the people that live in our community. There are many worthwhile and fulfilling career roles available in construction and we feel that it is our responsibility to raise awareness and encourage our young people to grasp the opportunities that are available following their choice of entry through either GCSE, A Level or apprenticeship”.

“This is also an important event for the construction industry as a whole which needs to train the next generation of skilled workers to meet the demands of construction industry in the West Midlands in the coming years.”

The Sandwell Decent Homes Partnership further demonstrated its commitment to bringing young people into the construction industry, by putting on an award ceremony to celebrate the outstanding work being undertaken by the Partnership’s apprentices. Thomas Vale’s Nathan Coleman won the Apprentice of the year award in the category ‘achieving against the odds’