Nottingham pupils experience the most efficient brick factory in the world
27 pupils from Fernwood Primary School in Nottingham recently had the opportunity to visit the world’s most efficient brick factory to learn more about UK manufacturing and the exciting, diverse and innovative career opportunities available in the construction industry.
Ibstock, the UK’s market leading manufacturer of clay and concrete building solutions, invited Year 5 and Year 6 students from the school to its state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities in Leicestershire to inspire them into thinking about the wide range of fantastic opportunities available in British manufacturing.
The day included a tour of Ibstock’s Eclipse factory, a production facility that takes 21st century British manufacturing excellence to a new level. The site, located on an old landfill site close to its principle source of raw materials, covers the size of six football pitches and includes a host of innovative technologies like robotics, automation and precision engineering to produce over 100 million bricks a year for the housebuilding and commercial sectors.
Gareth Emmonds, Group HR Manager at Ibstock, said: “Part of our commitment to the local community is to inspire the next generation of talented individuals. As a business, we are extremely passionate about recruiting and developing young people, so we were delighted to welcome pupils and staff from Fernwood Primary School to our Eclipse factory and head offices in Leicestershire to tell them more about who we are and the exciting career opportunities available here.
“Ibstock has a proud history of nearly 200 years of manufacturing and is continuously investing to ensure we manufacture in the most innovative, sustainable and efficient way possible. The Eclipse factory takes this to the next level. It’s a fantastic example of UK manufacturing at its best so it was great to give pupils at Fernwood Primary School an insight into what we do.”
Along with the factory tour, pupils learned more about Ibstock’s heritage as well as the varied and diverse careers available at the company, from marketing and finance, to operational and production roles. Gareth and his team also talked about Ibstock’s highly successful apprenticeship programme, which has been running for over 20 years and gives people the chance to train for highly skilled roles, gain nationally recognised qualifications and get paid while they learn.
Other activities for the pupils included the opportunity to look at how Ibstock is using innovative technologies like Virtual Reality (VR) to create smart homes of the future and the children also had the chance to build a computer with the support of Ibstock’s IT team.
“Our head offices and Eclipse factory in Ibstock is just one of the 38 sites across the UK that we operate from,” continued Gareth. “We employ 2300 people nationwide and hundreds locally in Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire and are proud to be a major employer in the area. The construction sector is such an exciting and fast paced industry to be involved in and I hope we’ve managed to inspire some of the pupils to think seriously about a career with us in the future.”
Simon Holroyd, Deputy Head at Fernwood Primary School, commented: “It really was a fantastic day that all the children enjoyed so I’d like to thank Ibstock for inviting us. Having a major UK manufacturer on our doorstep that is pushing the boundaries is great news for the local economy so it was great to get an insight into their business.
“The idea was to open the children’s eyes to the exciting world of manufacturing and construction and talk about the different pathways into industry. Not every pupil wants to go to university, so hearing about Ibstock’s apprenticeship programme and the support and training their apprentices get was fascinating for them.”
To find out more about all the exciting career opportunities available, visit www.ibstockplc.co.uk.
