Excitement builds during construction project day

Cambridge LaunchPad partner, Morgan Sindall Construction, invited 50 Year 4 students for a day of construction activities to open their eyes to the wide range of career possibilities in the industry.

Students from Icknield Primary School and Stapleford Community Primary School joined together at Sawston Village College to inspire their students through hands-on learning.

Ahead of the project day, representatives from Form the Future and Morgan Sindall Construction & Infrastructure visited the school to set the scene for their activity. Students were shown some of the projects that Morgan Sindall Construction had worked on and introduced to the various roles that were vital to complete a successful project. Students then thought about their strengths and personal attributes and together choose roles within the team; Project Manager, Quantity Surveyor, Site Manager, Design Manager and Planner.

Students were tasked to design a scale model of a sustainable house and given a budget of £110,000. Teams selected their materials through an interactive Top Trumps style card game. Each material had several features that would be considered when purchasing for real life projects such as, varying degrees of sustainability, energy efficiency, lifespan and of course price! Once the students had decided on their design, each team had to place an ‘order’ for their materials to make sure everything arrived in time for their build.

During the day students showed their teamwork and communication skills to work through their list of materials and complete their sustainable homes. They were visited by industry mascot, Ivor Goodsite, who talked about some of the hazards that you may find in construction, how to remain safe on site, and contextualising how the students may already be using some of these safety precautions.

Throughout the day students were judged on how well they had understood the Cambridge LaunchPad core values, ‘soft skills’ such as teamwork, communication and problem solving. At the end of activities, each house was judged on innovation, sustainability and use of the budget then, as Cambridge LaunchPad rewards through experience, a winning team from each school was selected to attend an additional prize trip.

Year 4 students from Icknield Primary School, said “We really enjoyed building the house because we got to visit the shop for materials. The most important part has been teamwork and working to a budget. We didn’t realise there were so many different materials to build with.”

Lizzy Harvey, Year 4 teacher at Stapleford Community Primary School, said: “Today has been a really worthwhile day. The children were stimulated and challenged, and when they struggled, there was always a Cambridge LaunchPad helper on hand. Real life maths, problem-solving, reasoning, teamwork and so much more. Thank you for a valuable day!”

Helen Clements, Community Investment Advisor at Morgan Sindall Construction, said: “Morgan Sindall is proud to support Cambridge Launchpad. It gives us a great opportunity to engage and inspire the next generation. By working with Year 4 students we can plant the seed of the roles and career paths that might be available to them in the future - two young women came up to me today and told me they wanted to be quantity surveyors when they are older!”

Molly Askham, STEM Outreach Co-ordinator from Form the Future CIC, said: “It has been so great to see every student rise to the challenge in front of them. They have taken some complicated workings and been able to understand how this would fit into a real-life application. Throughout the day all students showed amazing enthusiasm for the activities as well the roles they were representing from the industry.”

• For more information, please contact Michelle Yung of Form the Future CIC on myung@formthefuture.org.uk or 01223 781296