Since January, a selection of our Key Stage 3 pupils from Park Aspire have been taking part in plumbing and electrical sessions with Building Futures Together. We have been working with John and Jack and from the first session, they immediately welcomed the children and made them feel at ease in unfamiliar surroundings. Our pupils have not been able to maintain a placement in their local school either due to social, emotional or behavioural difficulties.

John and Jack are thorough with expectations and demonstrations, to allow the pupils to immediately begin their practical experiences. They are friendly, caring and supportive, giving our pupils the appropriate attention they need, while promoting independence and resilience. They have helped our pupils to develop the knowledge and understanding of working within a practical environment.

They are also able to cascade their knowledge to pupils and staff alike, they are consistently attentive to the needs of the pupils and interact superbly with them. The patience and perseverance the pupils demonstrate is an absolute pleasure to see and the positive experience is made even better by such fantastic instructors. We could not recommend this experience enough to other schools, in particular alternative provisions.

The sessions that ran at Crawshaw Academy were extremely powerful to witness. The demeanour of currently very disengaged students visible changed during a relatively short ninety-minute session. Firstly, as you might expect, the activities being practical and employability-focused quickly gained the interest of the groups.

The sessions were excellent with superb resources allowing for the students to be challenged throughout and were quickly adjusted to accommodate students that were either struggling or forging ahead. Perhaps even more powerful was how the two instructors worked with the students. There were very clear boundaries, obviously from a health and safety perspective, but also with regards to relationship building.

It was a relaxed environment, focussed on employability and the skills, qualities and attitudes required to be successful in these careers were constantly reinforced. One student, who was particularly defensive and detached to start with, visibly changed during the session allowing for me to have my first two-way positive interactions with him and this relationship has continued beyond the sessions. I cannot recommend their work highly enough.