Keepmoat Homes has staged a new event to inspire school children to consider a career in the construction industry.

The company teamed up with the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) and Generation Training to host the recent 'Give construction a try' event, a workshop which allowed 350 year 9/10 pupils across Leeds and Wakefield to try out around 30 interactive activities.

Outside activities included tiling, scaffolding, heavy plant and bridge building, while students also had the option of attempting joinery, electrical, plumbing, architectural design, painting and decorating, heritage crafts, site management, quantity surveying, bricklaying, drainage, clay carving, estimating – and considerably more.

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Other organisations who supported the event included Balfour Beatty, NHBC, Groundwork, Leeds College of Building, Peter Duffy Pipelining, Diggerland, HAKI Scaffolding and Training Group.

Ian Hoad, Regional Director for Keepmoat Homes, said if the industry is to meet Government expectations and build new homes, "then we have to ensure there is a steady stream of talented young people that want to work in the field".

"Having recently undertaken some research on the perceptions of the industry among 16-25 year olds – whereby just 21% of males said they would consider a career in construction, compared with 13% of females – we knew we had to do more," he said.

"What's more – that research also demonstrated that we are still blighted by legacy perceptions that it's all hard hats and site work. We work closely with a number of schools, colleges and job centres across the country to encourage more people into the field; but we were keen to host a day that would allow students to actually get some hands on experience and find out their options; and it more than paid dividends. 

"Feedback from both students and teaching staff was that there was an overwhelming positive outlook towards the field and genuine interest from some students who will now look to pursue a career in construction."

(LM/JP)