Students from Riverside School in Barking and Hopewell School in Dagenham took part in a four-day work experience academy with homebuilder Bellway at Barking Riverside recently.
Bellway is building more than 2,300 homes as part of the major regeneration of the former Barking Power Station site. The wider project is planned to deliver around 20,000 new homes for the area.
The company invited 11 pupils – 10 from Riverside and one from Hopewell – to come on site at its Fielders Quarter development at Barking Riverside and experience different sides of the construction business.
The experience offered the chance to get involved in a range of tasks from office-based assignments to putting on hard hats and hi vis for some hands-on practical experience. It is the second year Bellway has run the scheme.
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Managing Director of Bellway’s Barking Project Team, David Burns, said: “Being part of this growing community and supporting education and opportunities is an important aspect of what we are doing here in Barking.
“By offering our work experience programme to local pupils we can highlight to these young people the great and varied opportunities offered by a career in construction.
“We are building a thriving community here, and education, aspiration, and good jobs are as much part of a flourishing neighbourhood as open space and high-quality homes.
“We hope the students enjoyed their time with us and took away some new ideas and inspiration about their future careers and an understanding of what a large-scale project like this involves.”
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The four-day experience started with the students spending their first two days on office tasks. They visited the sales and marketing suite at Fielders Quarter and were asked to develop proposals for a new phase of the development which they presented to a panel on the Tuesday afternoon. They also had the chance to visit the construction site of the latest phase of building – Horizons at Fielders Quarter.
On the Wednesday and Thursday, the students were based at the Thames View Lodge and Hockley Mews retirement housing in Barking, where they worked with the Bellway team and contractor PGM Carpentry to build planters for the grounds.
At the end of the four days the students all received a certificate.
Mabel Ogundayo, CEO of Origin Consult, which works with Bellway to support its delivery of local employment and skills commitments, said: “What makes this programme so important is that it connects young people directly to the places being built around them. Through this experience, they weren’t just learning; they were delivering something meaningful for elderly members of their community and building genuine connections across generations. That sense of real contribution is incredibly powerful.
“We want them to leave not just with new skills, but with the confidence to believe they belong in these spaces – whether that’s in construction, design, or any part of the built environment.”
