Last week, Oli Abbott, Jack Coleman and Johnny Lyle went to visit two individual groups of students at St Edmunds, in Norwich to talk to them about careers in Joinery and carpentry.
St Edmunds Society is a fabulous charity, established in 1965, that provides support and an alternative learning environment for young people with few or no qualifications, who have experienced problems in life.
They provide these young people the chance to train in Construction, Mechanics, Catering & Hospitality, Health & Social Care and Hair & Beauty. For many, who may have experienced problems in the traditional education system, they also offer functional skills and GCSE’s in English and Maths for Post-16 students.
When we met the team from St Eds late last year, we were taken with the mission, their passion and their commitment to their students. We offered to come in to talk to students about life and our various experiences in construction. Oli and Jack both volunteered as neither had followed a a conventional route to their current positions and were happy to share their stories.
Oli was open in telling the groups how he was quite late to a career in construction and joinery but also very honest in telling how he had actively asked for opportunities to train and progress. From the CAP.CO perspective, it’s great for us when someone wants to become better at what they do and, where we can, will support them through their training. Oli is a great example of this working in practice.
Jack told the story of his career and the hard work he’d put in to get to where he is, working multiple jobs and side hustles to get on the property ladder and learn his craft.
We discussed the whole concept of whether hard work beats talent, as championed by YouTube’s Mat Armstrong and I think ultimately agreed that working hard in an area where you have a natural talent, is easily the best route.
What we loved about the general construction course St. Eds offer is that it leads to a City & Guilds L1 Qualification in Multi-Skills Construction. It gives the students an introduction and a grounding in all aspects of construction. It enables them to work hard and find their own passions, talent and hopefully have a clearer idea of where their future lies.
