Quod Teams Up with Teach First for Virtual Summer Work Experience
In July this year Quod partnered with Teach First to offer a week of virtual work experience to four secondary school and sixth form students, giving them the opportunity to gain an insight into the property industry. Since the start of the pandemic work experience placements have been largely unavailable due to the restrictions put in place. Teach First provided an opportunity to reach out to students who would otherwise not have the opportunity to gain work experience giving them an insight into the working world as well as useful experience towards their future studies and careers.
Many of our team volunteered their time throughout the week, showcasing the variety of projects and work that Quod does across the country, as well as a broad range of career opportunities and routes into the industry.
Feedback from the staff and students was extremely positive with all the students saying that it got them thinking about what they would like to do after school. They also said the virtual placement gave them skills such as communication and enabled them to enhance their CV and personal statement. Whilst virtual work experience was not without logistical challenges, overall, it was a great success and Quod is looking to expand its work experience programme further in the near future. Many thanks to Teach First for helping us set up and run the programme efficiently.
Quotes from a couple of the students are set out below:
“This has undoubtedly boosted my confidence and improved my ability to communicate with others appropriately, and on a professional level in the future. I feel that I was most proud of my ability to present my final presentation to the group of people virtually since it is something I fear, and having presented my work I have developed a certain level of acceptability in allowing this fear to be since it is perfectly normal to be scared….. I am also most proud of being able to learn so much from the work experience and the route we would have to take to get a job in a property firm like Quod, since I have been so enclosed and limited by the learning environments at school.”
“Overall, I really enjoyed the projects and I am very honoured to have been apart of such an interesting experience. I learnt about so many aspects that go into, the planning and development sector in property, that I didn’t know much about prior to that week. The week certainly made me come to a conclusion that, I have a strong feel for the socio-economical aspects of planning and development, and that it certainly interested me more then other fields, such as, environmental or financial etc.”
