A group of Y10 students take part in a construction talk and site visit to Byrchall High School.

On Thursday 25 April 2024  we had the fantastic opportunity to take some of our Year 10 pupils to the construction of Byrchall's new high school. This opportunity came about through initial contacts with the senior leadership team at Byrchall High School who put us in touch with Katie Tilyard. Her role is Social Value Co-ordinator for the North West of England for BAM Construction.  Katie offered us the opportunity to bring across some of our pupils for a 2-hour visit.

The visit started off with an interesting presentation from Katie alongside her colleague and Project Manager David Oldfield. This presentation gave us an overview of BAM the organisation, looking at their impact and projects across the UK and Europe and also gave us a fascinating overview of how the new Byrchall High School has started and continues to progress on track. Our pupils were amazed by the scale and the intricacies of how a building of this size can be made possible and all of the logistics that need to be right to bring it to life. Whilst the presentation was ongoing our pupils took notes and answered some of the questions posed to them in their workplace experience booklets. They were also given the chance by David to ask any questions they wanted about the site or the construction industry as a whole.

Our final part of the visit really put the presentation to life as we had the chance to go on a tour of the new site. After we put on our PPE and safety equipment we crossed over into the new building itself and could see the construction workers doing their own individual jobs. The school is currently in the fitting stage and we could see all kinds of skilled tradesman working hard. Despite the distraction we created, they were still very hospitable to ourselves. David was very informative on the tour and as we visited every department a school has to offer. It was clear  to see how impressed the pupils were by the building.

The pupils and staff really enjoyed the afternoon out with BAM at what will soon to be Byrchall's new high school. This opportunity was fantastic and the young people who came with us on the day were clearly very impressed and amazed at the size and scale of the project. This has no doubt raised their own aspirations of working hard and achieving the very best for themselves.

With thanks to Katie, David and Joe for an amazing site visit and presentation, we wish you well in the final stages of construction.

Mr M Taylor (Learning Development Leader KS4)