On Friday 4th April, I took 30 Year 10 students to Birmingham Airport for a ‘Careers in Construction’ morning organised by Fiona Weir at Vinci Buildings. She brought together lots of employers and apprenticeship providers to speak to students about what a real career in construction could look like’ everything from flooring, to demolition, quantity surveying and scaffolding, plus lots of other sub contractors who work in Artificial Intelligence and CAD (Computer Aided Design)
As the only main school invited along, the students were given exclusive access to the employers. The students experienced the virtual and real world of construction as well as get the chance to have a go at some other hands on activities with the employers, plus they got to speak to the employers about upcoming work experience in July 2025. They did this all whilst watching the planes at BHX take off and land on runway 2. Plus, all the students got a gift bag full of goodies such as notepads, pens, sweets, water-bottles, post it-notes and trolley coins!!!
Stand out students were Indya, Jak and Ajay. I was also very impressed with Ayaan who impressed one of the employers so much she now has the chance to contact the Lord Mayor of Birmingham for her work experience!
Fiona Weir is a the new SWA Enterprise Advisor through the Careers Enterprise Company (aka CEC), and her role is going to be working with SWA over the next two and a half years to raise the aspirations of the students, offering expert advice about this industry all whilst giving the students hands on experience both in school and off-site. All this has been possible because of the Careers Enterprise Company and the fact that SWA are a member of the Solihull Careers Hub. This relationship is very special to SWA because of the careers, post 16, Post 18 and employment opportunities it has afforded our students.
In the summer term, Fiona and her team will be working closely with me and SWA Heads of STEM Curriculum areas to raise things like, attendance, raising the profile of Gatsby Benchmark 4 (Gatsby Benchmark 4 – Linking Careers to the Curriculum) as this is a key target for the Careers team and the wider academy.
