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The project team arranged for a live transatlantic virtual site visit of one of their large construction sites in Philadelphia, USA for pupils at local secondary schools in North East Scotland as part of ongoing supports for a local Developing the Young Workforce (DYW) North East group. Pupils from Lochside Academy, Westhill Academy & Portlethen Academy joined the call to…

Aiming to inspire young people and career changers to consider and explore a dynamic and exciting career in the construction industry, the project team based in Westminster were not discouraged by coronavirus and prepared an online site visit for its virtual attendees. This year’s Open Doors Week was disrupted by the pandemic however, the public was still able to see…

Balfour Beatty Site Engineer Fraser Conway has recently completed his 4 year civil engineering modern apprenticeship and has now progressed onto a new Graduate Apprenticeship Civil Engineering programme. Fraser joined Balfour Beatty in 2016 and is a former pupil at Northfield Academy. Fraser initially joined Balfour Beatty as an apprentice civil engineer working on the AWPR as was part of…

Balfour Beatty supported 255 pupils from Aberdeen City primary schools through delivering the Bridges to Schools workshops at Lochside Academy during week of 4 November 2019. The sessions were arranged as part of partnership with Lochside Academy and engaged pupils from Loirston Primary, Abbotswell Primary, Charleston Primary, Walker Road Primary, Tullos Primary and Kirkhill Primary. The Bridges to Schools week…

Due to the current coronavirus pandemic and the restriction to only essential visitors to site, the project team had to think of other ways of engaging with the local college. This lead to the use of ‘Virtual Site Visits’ through the use of a video conferencing app allowing the team to walk the students through the site while answering questions…

Balfour Beatty are supporting the UK Career Ready programme and are in the third year of supporting the programme which runs in Moray, Scotland. The Career Ready programme is a commitment to providing young people with mentoring over a two year period and also involves supporting a four week summer work placement for participants. In Moray, Balfour Beatty staff members…

Each year we take part in Open Doors, a national event which offers young people and people across the country the chance to visit our sites and learn more about careers in construction. As part of open doors we work with schools to offer students the chance to take part in a routes into construction workshop, followed by a Q&A…

Inspired Choices is a collaborative programme from the Police, Fire and probation services, local authorities, health providers, private organisations, charities and community leaders who are working together to support vulnerable young people. A £10,000 sponsorship programme for 2019/2020 was provided, which includes mentoring and volunteering time from Willmott Dixon employees including colleagues at the Christ Church School Academy project. Site…

The Girl Dreamer Academy programme is an empowerment platform for women and girls of colour. Through leadership development programmes, adventure sport and digital content they aim to build confidence and unleash the potential of girls everywhere. Girl Dreamer likes to push the boundaries, test the waters and go full throttle at everything they do. From setting up the UK’s first…

To encourage Secondary School Students to become more actively involved during their Educational Site Tours, Robertson introduced an activity called the 5 W Construction Challenge. It was apparent from previous site tours that some of the students were much more confident that others in asking questions. To resolve this, Robertson wanted to provide an experience that engaged all students and…

As part of delivering our corporate responsibility targets relating to community engagement on this project, we have partnered with a company called Mad Science to deliver an informative series of sustainability workshops to a local school. Mad Science’s Sustainability Lab workshop programme is much easier to teach, more engaging and is much less stressful than a mass field trip to…

Our local school had vandals attack their chicken coop, which led to the majority of their chickens being exposed to natural predators leading to only two little hens surviving. As we were trying to take a creative approach on how we could avoid any timber waste on our project, we decided to build a small prototype chicken coop for our…

As part of our engagement with the community surrounding our project at the University of Strathclyde, we reached out to the Civil Engineering Department to conduct a ‘hands on lecture’ that would support the students learning and awareness. We created ‘Wonder Learning Boxes’, which were each filled with a different textile for the students to feel and discuss with their…

We are constructing 80 houses in Dunleer, Co. Louth, Ireland using a insulated concrete form (ICF). The ICF blocks are a lightweight polystyrene block, that is filled with concrete once installed. Constructing the ICF walls involves slotting one block into another and can easily be completed by anyone. We engaged with the local school and arranged an activity on site,…

Members of the Leeds Public Transport Improvement Programme (LPTIP) attended Leeds apprenticeship recruitment fair on Monday 3 February. The annual fair attracts young people from ages 14 onwards and is a great place to find out more about what options are available for those who don’t want to go to university. This year, the event was attended by 6,123 delegates…