Site visit to new Hornchurch Sports Centre brings learning to life

They had a tour of the site followed by a presentation by Metnor Construction, who are running the huge project.

Metnor’s Project Manager, Shaun Powell, said: “At the start of this project we reached out to the Havering Colleges to provide an opportunity for local students to see construction on a grand scale. We also wanted to help them develop a broader knowledge and understanding of our industry by means of site visits, presentations and work experience.

“It was fantastic to see the students show such an interest in our project.”

The visit followed two other site tours where Construction and Built Environment students were also able to see first-hand the work going on at Wates Group building projects.

The first was to the site adjacent to the Rainham campus in New Road where the students were taken up to the 10th floor and had a bird’s eye view of the surrounding area, including the college!

The second visit was to a Wates site in Hornchurch which demonstrated to the students how vital safety, cleanliness and tidiness is on a working project.

Programme Manager Alan Burgess said: “These were all amazing experiences for the students and are so important because they cannot be recreated in the classroom. Giving them access to real life projects is what education is all about and really brings their learning to life.

“We are very grateful at Rainham campus to have such support for our students from these companies who are helping us to create a Construction Centre of which the industry and the community can be proud.”