Construction & the Built Environment students have a tour of the Miller Homes Construction Site

 

Last Thursday, Barnsley College Construction students were invited by Miller Homes to visit their site in Honeywell, Barnsley and tour their current build project.

Miller Homes are a highly respected construction company who specialise within new build properties, they are based in Wakefield and have been established since 1934.

Students were inducted to the site before being presented with information about the company, the team and the actual project before going on tour of the whole site.

The students were shown around by the Site Manager – Nick Arnold, Build Manager – Paul Ramsbottom, Health & Safety Advisor – Tony Haig, Contracts Manager – Paul Archer and Production Secretary - Carol Ackroyd. It was very informative and the whole project was explained from the beginning with the different processes involved in the new build process. The staff and students were asking questions during the tour and it gave them a great insight of the project and the tasks involved.

The students are currently studying the Construction and the Built Environment course, so the site visit gave them all a better understanding of the tasks and sequences involved in a project like this. Also to find out about the issues that may occur on site and how these issues can be rectified to meet the builder’s requirements.

We would like to say a big thank you to Miller Homes for arranging the visit and hope they enjoyed meeting some of our students.

A site visit for the plumbing department

This week the construction department was given the opportunity to visit a Keepmoat housing development in Barnsley. 14 students from Barnsley College who are currently studying towards a level 1 Plumbing Diploma got to experience what it is like to be on a real construction site.

Katie Stafford the Social Value Manager and the Site Manager, Jamie Ellis, introduced Keepmoat and what the development was for. An H&S briefing was carried out and information on apprenticeships and development opportunities was also passed on to the students.

The Site Manager took the students around the site and into some of the houses allowing them to see the different fixing stages when building a house.

The students were given information that related to their actual course such as plumbing installations, the job roles of people working on the site, the site programme and scheduling, H&S, Quality standards that everyone works to, Inspections that take place, the importance of housekeeping and the potential earnings in the industry.

The site visit was invaluable as many of the students have not yet had the opportunity to see a live site and this visit gave them a better understanding by putting the training they have received in college and seeing it in a real environment.

All the students and staff really enjoyed the visit and can’t thank Keepmoat enough for the visit and the opportunity they have given two further students from Barnsley College to undertake a placement on the site in Athersley.

Students Visit Civil Engineering Site Junction 36 Birdwell, Barnsley

Barnsley college/university campus barnsley students recently enjoyed a visit to the ESH Group UK site on the A61 Birdwell junction on J36 in November 2016 which consists of a new highway construction and remodelling of the existing junction.
 

The site manager discussed health and safety awareness and risk assessments before heading out on to the site to look around for themselves.

 

 

This type of experience is invaluable for our students especially when you consider that very few of them have any experience in the civil engineering sector. They all thoroughly enjoyed it.

'A Day in Industry' with Mott Macdonald and Better Barnsley

On Monday 9^th May 2016 a class of Barnsley College students were lucky enough to be invited to attend ‘a day in industry’ organised by Sarah McHale of BMBC and James Kirkham of Mott Macdonald. The event was planned to give the students an insight into the design and construction industry using a live project on the Better Barnsley Development.

 

The new May Day Green Market which is currently being developed in Barnsley Town Centre was the ideal example to demonstrate the work underway whilst also linking to the students current college work.

The day included a visit to Mott MacDonald’s office in Sheffield where we were presented with information from the project manager, structural engineer and designer. We were shown the processes and software using Revit to create the drawings and specifications of the structure that will carry the loading of the new build.

We then visited Billington Steel’s design office where we were shown how they created the junctions between beams, columns and braces with AutoCAD before being sent to the programming department for cutting and drilling.

 

We was given a tour of the fabrication shop in Wombwell. Here we saw where the deliveries are processed, stamping, cutting, drilling, welding and fabrication, jet blasting and painting of the steel before grouping together ready for despatch and transportation to site.

The group then moved to the actual site of the structure itself in Barnsley town centre which is currently managed by De Boer. Here they got to see and fully visualise the design they had seen from the start of the day.

      

The day proved to be an invaluable experience for the 1st year students on the Construction in the Built Environment Course at Barnsley College. To see a structure being designed, fabricated and constructed on site isn't something people are usually fortunate enough to see.  They now look forward to seeing the May Day Green Market fully constructed at the end of the project.