So last year the company went on the offensive and began engaging with local students, aged 14, drawing them into a two-year programme that gives them experience and training, and takes Lovell closer to the source of the brightest graduates.
Lovell picked 12 students, four each from a girls' school, a community school and a selective school, to take part in its company mentoring scheme. Krystyna Blackburn, who runs the programme for Lovell's London region, says that in the first project the three teams had to submit an informal tender for a piece of land. The second project was an estimate for a block of flats on the land they'd bought. Both involved much research, presentation and feedback from Lovell.
The teams are now mid-way through the third project, a 15-minute presentation on how to manage a large social housing site, based on interviews and analysis. There will only be two projects next year because the students are sitting their GCSEs. The next wave of students will be recruited this month.
The projects may sound simple, but Blackburn says the students encountered considerable difficulty. They had to call strangers and charm them into divulging information. They had to delegate tasks, meet strict deadlines and make detailed presentations.
Blackburn admits that they assumed rather too much about the students – that they knew how to write a business letter, for instance, or that they would take up the invitation to call if they needed advice. The students' age accounts for a great deal of this, but to Blackburn it also shows just how far removed schools are from the real world of business.
"No matter how well briefed students are, the experience is completely alien to normal school work," she says. "There appears to be little marrying between the needs of business and school.
"In this programme we're actually teaching core skills such as self-organisation, information management, progressive problem solving and managing failure. These are skills they can take to any job."
Teacher Anne Pulford co-ordinates the programme at the all-girls Enfield County School.
we’re teaching core skills: self-organisation, progressive problem solving and how to manage failure
She agrees that a great divide separates industry and education.
"Teachers go from school to university and back to school," she says. "They have no knowledge of industry. They should be allowed to take sabbaticals to see where the subject they teach fits in."
Pulford gave full marks to the programme for teaching her students communication skills and confidence. She had noticed a marked change from project to project, but, she says, the programme is not cost-effective for the school.
"It takes up a lot of my time, which the school then has to cover, and the benefits are going to just four pupils."
The girls themselves were enthusiastic. Maria Christou says that before the programme she had been attracted to a career in financial services. "I had no idea there were so many financial aspects to construction."
Confident and articulate, Christou admits the programme is tough. "It's difficult to do all the work that Lovell sets because we have other priorities as well. But at the back of our minds we know we chose to do it."
Lovell has invested a lot in the programme. Blackburn hasn't costed her own time and a £30,000 grant from the government doesn't cover everything.
Is it a good risk?
Lovell hopes that at least some of the students will return to take up positions, and will sponsor them at university in return for a period of service. But what if they skip merrily off to competitors or sexier industries?
Source
Construction Manager
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