So, we're here today at one of our flagship quarries
from Breedon, which is Dowlow, which is just outside of Buxton.
We've had a fantastic teacher encounter day today.
So, Breedon have come together in partnership with Derby University,
Minerals Matter, and the East Midlands Career Hub to create
a really fantastic event for lots of different teachers from
key stage three, key stage four, to really give them lots
of information about the quarrying industry, about what we do at Breedon.
So, we are a leading construction materials group in Great Britain,
Ireland and also the United States.
Very simply, we supply to the construction industry, we supply
them with essential materials, needed to build the places where
we live, work, play and everything else in between.
Why do we want teachers here?
Well, they're so critical in helping guide the next generation
of people who will work in the minerals industry.
So, it's great that they come here today, see what
we do and see how it works.
The opportunities, many opportunities that are available to
future students are incredible,
and, so we want to leave today with that
understanding so we can help build further relationships with the schools.
At Minerals Matter, our mission is to raise the profile
of careers across the minerals industry with young people.
So, work like this with employers, with the careers hub,
with the university,
it's so important for us to really get that message out there,
not only to young people, but also to the teachers
who are there educating the young people, the careers advisors,
parents as well, so that we can really help influence young
people to think about their future careers, possibly in this industry.
So, I think the key takeaways from today is that
it's great that you've got companies that really want to
promote what is going on within their business.
Talking about all the different opportunities, the progression, looking at
alternatives for school leavers and for college leavers of what
they can go into next.
They've met some amazing apprentices today, who work for Breedon
from Surfacing, Operatives, Operations Management, they've learned all about
our apprenticeship programmes and the wide range of opportunities that we have.
An apprenticeship is a job with learning.
It's a combination of on-the-job training with Breedon and then
structured learning at college or university or with a training provider.
I've been at Breedon now for four years starting on
a degree apprenticeship through the University of Derby.
Over the time I've been at Dowlow, I've progressed as
a Trainee Manager, to now as a Phase Two Manager
over the yard process.
I was very fortunate that I've been based at Dowlow,
being such a big site, when you go out,
you'll see the operation, it's massive and they just
put a learning plan for me together in terms
of getting the maximum exposure I can to the industry.
That's a big thing that I'm very proud of on
this site that we've managed to develop people.
Our steer now is, get people, if they come in,
got the right attitude, we'll give them a chance, we'll train them.
I think it's really important to link careers to the
curriculum so we can share what we've found out today
with the rest of our teaching staff, with our students
to enable everybody within the school to be able to
promote those other opportunities and those pathways into employment and
into apprenticeship routes.
We've ended the day with having a really good round table
discussion with the teachers, with the Careers Hub, with
Derby University, Minerals Matter to talk about what's next?
Where do we go next with this project?
What can we do to ensure that the teachers are still really engaged?
And that all this amazing information that they've heard and
listened to all day, is passed on for the
benefit of the students.
So from today, our hope is that we will have
got some really good contacts and we can start to
build some partnerships with local schools and we can see
how we can support them with careers activities moving forward,
get out there in front of the young people and
explain more about the fantastic industry that we're in.