How About Swapping The Classroom For A Trip To Watch Diggers On A Building Site?
22 Oct 2015

Imagine you are eight years old and someone tells you that today you’ll be leaving maths, literacy and your classroom behind to visit a real life building site, wear a hard hat and watch diggers in action: Pretty exciting stuff!

This is exactly what happened to thirty children from Welwyn St Mary’s school on 14th October.

The children were taken to the site of Linden Homes’ new Wilshere Park development near the village and each child was issued with a hard hat and a high visibility vest to wear during the visit.

They were welcomed by Ivor Goodsite – the construction industry mascot - and Shawn Moore, Linden Homes Chiltern’s production director, who showed the children around the Wilshere Park building site, where Linden Homes is creating a collection of 3, 4 and 5 bedroom homes:

“It’s great fun having the children here. It is fascinating to see how homes are built and we can show them in a safe, organised and interesting way how the site works. We also like to take this opportunity to tell them some of the dangers of a site. If you come onto one without permission they can be hazardous places. Bringing small groups of school children onsite in this way means they learn about the industry and we get to explain about what we are doing.”

During the day the children visited the Sales & Marketing Suite for a Health & Safety talk and were introduced to ‘Bob b Safe and Barney b Sorry’; explaining the correct procedures to follow on a construction site . They also had an overview of the development and saw a 3D model of the houses that potential customers can look at to get an idea of what the final development will look like.

The children were shown inside a partially completed house, so they could see how the different aspects of the build – the carpentry, the plumbing, and the wiring for example – come together, along with demonstrations of the materials.

To the delight of the children, during the visit, the diggers and fork lift truck performed a special display for them, highlighting the skilful manoeuvres of their drivers. They even had a chance to try some of the expert skills required to build a house: After putting on protective gloves, the children had a go at bricklaying.

Afterwards, each child was given a goodie bag to remind them of their day at Wilshere Park.

Welwyn St Mary’s teacher Clive Anstey who attended the trip said it had been an extremely interesting visit for the children:

“Our Year Four pupils visited the Wilshere Park development and enjoyed every minute. They had a fascinating talk from the site managers, learning about the history of the site including its role for MI5 during the Second World War.

“The children loved being kitted up in full personal protective clothing. They saw the inside of a house that was nearing completion and learnt how large machinery is used safely. They were even given an opportunity to build a brick wall. The children loved the visit, learnt a lot about site safety and the dangers of playing on a site and some were even inspired to be engineers in the future.”

Frances Longhurst is from Linden Homes, which is donating £1,000 towards the resurfacing of Welwyn St Mary’s school playgrounds:

“We are delighted the children could come on site and see for themselves what we are doing here. I think they enjoyed meeting Ivor Goodsite too. I hope they left us knowing a little more about how a construction company like Linden Homes operates, site safety and how homes are made. I know Ivor Goodsite and the staff on site really enjoyed having the children around.”

For more information about Wilshere Park, please visit the Linden Homes’ website or call 01707 861 386. Alternatively you can visit our sales and marketing suite, which is open from 10am to 5pm every day.

-ENDS-

Media can contact Emma Cox or Fotini Efstathiou at Remarkable Group on 01962 893893 for more information, images and interviews with Linden Homes.

References to “we”, “us” or “our” are to the part of the Vistry Group (including Linden Homes, Bovis Homes, Countryside Homes, Drew Smith, Vistry Ventures or one of Vistry’s joint venture companies) from which you are intending to purchase a new home. References to "you” and “your” are to the prospective buyer or buyers of a new home from us.

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