Inspiring the Next Generation of Built Environment Professionals with Craig Bloxsome

[00:00:00] Speaker A: This is Constructive Voices. [00:00:02] Speaker B: Constructive Voices, the podcast for the construction people with news, views and expert interviews. [00:00:09] Speaker A: This is Jackie Deberka for Constructive Voices and I have for you today what appears to be a very interesting conversation with Craig Bluxham. He is from Cirencester College. He's a course team leader in T level design, surveying and planning for construction. Craig, thank you so much for being here with me today. Can you just give a little bit more of an overview of your background? [00:00:33] Speaker B: Yeah, thanks for having me, Jackie. I'm honored to be here. So, as you mentioned, my name's Craig. I'm course team leader at Cirencester College for the T level in design, surveying and planning. I've worked in further and higher education for about the last 20 years and I'm generally focused on what we in the UK call level three qualifications, which are the equivalent of A levels over here. So this is the type of qualification that kids do after they leave their, their school. So around about 16 to 19 year olds of what I've been focused on for the last 20 years. [00:01:07] Speaker A: Perfect. So that will be a good explanation for our global audience and your career, Craig, has been very deeply rooted in education and construction. Can you share how you transitioned from training apprentices to becoming a course leader there? [00:01:23] Speaker B: So I guess when I left, when I left school, you know, I went to do college and we were in, we were in a recession at that time in the UK and there weren't many jobs around. So I ended up going through the school and the college system and then into university and then into work basically. And one opportunity leads to another and I was made redundant at some point and I took that opportunity to transition back into education where I was helping out apprentices find jobs whilst they were like, whilst they were apprentices, while they were learning their trade and to help them through that qualification. And then someone at that college at the time turned around to me and said, have you thought about teaching? You know, we've noticed that you spend a lot of time with construction students and you've got a construction qualification and that's, you know, that's a little bit of your background. Have you considered teaching? And at that point and that time in my life, I thought, yeah, why not? You know, let's grab it with both hands from that point onwards. You know, I've loved every moment of it. I enjoy spending time, you know, teaching people and especially that, that group of sort of 16 to 19 year olds. [00:02:31] Speaker A: They'Re definitely at an interesting stage of life. Craig Greg, aren't they? And it sounds to me, from how you've described all of that, that you probably have a vocation. Would you think so? [00:02:39] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. You know, especially working at Cirencester College, the majority of days get up and get into the car and really look forward to going to work and you know, do it with a smile on my face and it really is a vocation as opposed to just a job. [00:02:54] Speaker A: That'S absolutely brilliant and you know, you're privileged to be in that position, like obviously not everybody is. So your experience as a lecturer and course leader, obviously Craig, has shape very much your perspective on the skills needed for success in the construction industry. How, how has it kind of made you feel about what skills are required these days? [00:03:17] Speaker B: So, yeah, I mean, I teach design, surveying and planning and in previous years in the UK this has been more sort of described as construction and the built environment or built environment or something, something like that. So, you know, I teach those design, surveying and planning skills. I'm not a carpenter or a bricklayer or a trades person in, so I focus on those things and sometimes it can maybe feel a bit academic and I like to put in as much practical work as is possible into, into my teaching because I think teenagers especially at the moment, learn best by, by doing things. So yeah, we, we like to put those skills into what we do. I mean, in my view, sort of the real skills that I think are important in, in what we do and what we deliver are being able to, to be able to draw, to be able to use technology, to be able to do maths and to be able to understand science. But what we're also finding, and we've heard a lot of from employers, is that young people need to be able to communicate professionally written and oral skills and be able to have those type of professional conversations. So we try and work a lot of that into what we do as well. [00:04:31] Speaker A: How interesting. Now what are your thoughts, Craig, on how to entice these young people into the industry? [00:04:37] Speaker B: My thoughts are that we need to make the industry an interesting, worthwhile and kind of valued pace for those young people to go. Young people are very switched on at the moment about the built environment and they really do care about the built environment and they care about global warming and they do listen to these things and they do understand what's happening to our planet and I think a lot of them do want to. Do you want to change what's happening? However, I think it can often feel, or the construction industry can often feel like an industry that is maybe quite difficult to get into if you're a young person. And there may be other options that young people think, well, actually, this is easier or more accessible for me. So our job, or part of my job, is to encourage young people in and to entice them in. And I think that we can do that by showing them what the industry really is and a lot of the emerging technologies that are coming out which kind of hook people into a career in the built environment. [00:05:48] Speaker A: That leads me so nicely, Craig, on to my next question, which was, in fact going to be, how about using technology as a tool to track those young people in? [00:05:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, and I think. I think technology is possibly one of the most effective tools in trying to encourage people into the built environment. We've seen over recent years that if you've met a young person, then generally speaking, their phone is glued to their hand at the moment. And be that a good thing or a bad thing, it is what it is. We all use our devices to communicate now, but actually young people use those devices now, obviously, for communication, entertainment, and in some cases, for. For work and things. It really is, you know, an incredible tool. We've also seen, you know, the rise of online gaming, things like Minecraft, amongst others, and Fortnite, which a lot of the kids really, really interested and really, really into. And if you look into those games, you know, they're building things. They really are, and they're producing buildings and in some cases producing whole worlds. And they're designing, they're doing architecture. They might not realize that they are doing architecture, but they are, and they're doing that from a very, very young age. So, yeah, that's how I think, you know, that's how I think the technology is happening. And I can't see it slowing down. I think, if anything, it's going to get more and more prevalent. [00:07:15] Speaker A: So I guess from what you're saying, Craig, it's probably a combination of letting them know that it's almost second nature to them because of what they've already been playing and at the same time that a job within the built environment could potentially help, you know, make them part of the change that is so much needed at the moment. [00:07:34] Speaker B: If they've got the interest, you know, which they. Which they probably have, you know, if they. If they care about our environment, if they care about where we live, and they're already the type of person that is, you know, playing these types of games where they're interested in design and they're interested in the outcomes of what happens when they do certain things. Within that environment, you know, the changes that they make to the environment digitally, then you know how the next step is to put that into real life, I guess, and, you know, to join the industry and for them to realize that actually the built environment industry isn't just about being out on building sites and doing the trades. As important as all of those things obviously are to get things built, but there is other stages and I feel that maybe the advice that young people get in school systems sort of isn't opening up that sort of design and surveying kind of option to them. People don't know about it. [00:08:37] Speaker A: So what subjects, again, because we have a global audience, Craig, what subjects are now in schools that could potentially be deepened if you like to make that sort of bridge between school and those areas? [00:08:52] Speaker B: I mean, I think the obvious one that people always talk about first off is having a really, really good foundation in mathematics. And, you know, all right, a lot of kids maybe don't enjoy mathematics, but having a really good basic knowledge of mathematics is really important. English for communication or if you're in a global audience, the language that you're going to be using. And it certainly helps Bebbi to have another language. Now, I suppose the bigger subject in terms of the built environment and technology and stuff is probably building information modeling. So anything that can help you understand building information modeling from a very early age is going to help you in your career in the built environment at the moment. So I guess you could begin to start talking about coding and using computers to produce information that's relevant to the built environment. [00:09:49] Speaker A: So going into a more specific area now, Craig, looking at the T levels, obviously that's what you're a course leader for. And in design, surveying and planning for construction, what do you find most exciting about the T level initiative? [00:10:05] Speaker B: T levels are a really, really exciting qualification that's been launched here in England and Wales. T levels, again, to put people internationally into the picture are kind of the equivalent of three A levels, which are the level of study here that we do in the uk. I'm not familiar with like the American or the North American system, but it's what happens after you, after you leave your regular school, if you like. Over here we call it sixth form or go into a further education college. What sets T levels apart is that they do have a large, about 20%, the entire qualification actually, or it works at about 315 hours. They have a large element of work placement. So students are getting out into the work placement whilst they're studying at college and this helps Them absolutely, enormously so. At Cirencester College we place our students with local building contractors, quantity surveyors, design practices, architects, you know, a whole range of different, different, different companies. And the students get to experience what it's like actually going to work. Because for a lot of these kids, they've never had a job before and it's, and it's very easy to forget what it was like when we were kids. You know, you have to almost learn to go to work itself. You know, what does it actually feel like to get up really early in the morning and get yourself, you know, to work after traveling on a bus and things? And it gets them used to that. Plus obviously it has an amazing effect on their education. It effectively turbocharges what they're doing in the classroom and they become very, very interested in what we do in the classroom because they can apply that to what they're doing on their work placement. And I mean, what we've really started, what we really get excited about, what I get excited about is that the feedback we have from employers is now beginning to say things like, well actually the students are coming into our workplace and they're showing us how to use sort of new technologies and pieces of software that maybe we didn't realize were going to be so good for our company. And we've got some, some really, really good relationships now with employers who take students year after year and they're always surprised at, you know, the kind of things that those students are showing their employees. So it's a real win, win situation for everyone. [00:12:46] Speaker A: That sounds really amazing. And obviously from how you're describing it, Craig, that goes a long way to bridge that horrible gap between traditional academia and the real world, isn't it? [00:12:58] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, over here in the UK there are other options. You know, a 16 year old can go out and work and get an apprenticeship where they, they, they work for four days of the week and go to college for like one day of the week. Yeah, which, which works for a lot of. It works for some people, you know, and, and that's absolutely great. But with the T level it's the other way around. They're at college for four days and then they go to work for, or they go into their work placement for one day of a week. And that, you know, from obviously from the point of view of the students that I work with, that works better. And after those two years, you know, then they've got that option to, you know, do they go on to full time university? Do they, you know, do they go on to a higher apprenticeship? They just have all of the options open to them and they leave the course with, as I say, the equivalent of three A levels and some real life work experience that they can put on there CV and hopefully, you know, they've left with a, they were left with a good grade and some skills as well. [00:14:04] Speaker A: It's fantastic. I mean, it sounds like a really wonderful initiative. We're obviously broadcasting this during National Apprenticeship Week. So I'm very curious from what you've just answered, Craig, for you to compare your point of view on T levels versus apprenticeships. [00:14:21] Speaker B: Really the two things can work together. As a student, you can't study an apprenticeship and a T level, but you can certainly maybe start on a T level course. Yeah. And sample some of the things and get an idea of what you would like to do. And then when you leave that T level course, then yes, you can go off into the next level up as an apprentice or go into degree apprenticeships or you can go into, you know, full time degree study as well. The more traditional type of thing. They're not, you know, they're not qualifications that are working against each other or are against each other. They just widen the options for people. And I think that's very clear because in, in the middle of National Apprenticeship Week, I think we've got T level Thursday as part of National Apprenticeship Week, which is great because it's recognizing that those T level students are out there, you know, in the work placement as well. It's just maybe a different way of looking at it. [00:15:16] Speaker A: Yeah, no, it does sound actually like they are complementary and one can be, you know, a logical graduation after the other, depending on the, the individual student, I suppose. [00:15:26] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And at the end of the day, what we all do is about the individual students. What everyone who works in education does is all about the students and that's our priority. So giving students opportunities and choices both when they start qualifications and when they progress onto something is what we're all about. [00:15:48] Speaker A: It sounds quite idyllic but like everything in life, Craig, presumably there must be some challenges in delivering T level courses. What are they? [00:15:56] Speaker B: Yeah, of course there are challenges and you know, challenges are a part of. Challenges are part of what make things better in the future really, isn't it? Challenges in terms of T levels. I think you have to have the right student on, you know, in that course. There can't be a second, a second option if you like. It's, you know, you've really got to commit to doing it and As a young person, many young people are finding their way in the world and maybe they don't realize exactly how much of a commitment a T level is, especially when you have, you know, you are committing to going to a work placement for 315 hours. Probably their last or their only experience of work experience was when they were at school. They might have been sent off for a week's work experience at a local company. You know, that's only, you know, whatever, 30, 35 hours of a week. Whereas when you're on a T level, you know, it really is committing to attending a work placement as a. As a volunteer, you know, for 50 or so days. So that is it. That is a big commitment. So that is one of the challenges. Of course, the other challenge is that it's a fairly new qualification. It's been running for around about the last five years. I think we're about to get our fifth cohort through at Cirencester College. And Cirencester College, one of the first colleges to actually start a lot of T levels. And we're very heavily focused on T levels. So finding those work placements is also challenging. And we have a lot of people at the college who are focused on finding work placements for students. But we also obviously ask our students to go out and search for them themselves. And that can be challenging. What other challenges do we have? I mean, we have the usual challenges of young people who sometimes, we all know young people, and sometimes they make what we would consider to be poor choice. But, you know, they're at college and if there's one place where you sort of, you know, you are not allowed, if you, like, you're, you know, you're poor, if you make a poor choice, it can be talked through, let's put it that way. Yeah. You know, and we have to, you know, we have to make sure that those work placements are the right work placement for that particular person. And that's challenging as well. I would also say Cirencester College is a. Is a rural college and we have a very wide catchment area. So people come from a long way to come to our college. You know, sometimes traveling in excess of an hour or an hour and a half on a bus to come and, you know, to come and study with us. Now, young people generally don't have their own transport, so actually it could be quite difficult being a rural college for young people to be able to find a work placement and then to be able to get it, especially if they're working somewhere, you know, on a large Construction site, as you can probably imagine. And large construction sites, generally speaking, don't happen on a bus route. That's easy for us. Or they don't happen on a train route. So being a rural college, we actually have challenges that many inner city colleges don't have. [00:19:11] Speaker A: If you're going into the fifth cohort, as you were saying earlier on, Craig, you're obviously doing a good enough job that, you know, it's already been made enough of a success, even with those logistics and just the overall, people are at a certain stage of their lives, so they're going to behave differently, you know. [00:19:27] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And I hear a lot of good stories about our previous students and, you know, using, using the power of the Internet. It's very easy now for me to, you know, stay in touch with those students. And I regularly ask my former students to come back and give, you know, guest talks about what it is they do. And I'm very, very proud to say that many of my former students have left, gone off and they've been very successful in their work placements. They've been very successful in their work, their lives and their careers. And some of those folks are chartered construction managers now. They are chartered surveyors, they are architects, some of those ones from a long time ago. And I absolutely love inviting those people back into college to talk about their journey and to talk about what they did and to try and give a bit of advice to the young people that are there now in their shoes. Because I'm an old person now, Jackie. I'm, you know, my students view me as an, view me as an old person. However, if they can, if I can put someone in front of them who's maybe 10, 12 years ahead of them, that might seem like a long time to a young person, but as we know, it goes past very, very quickly. Yeah. And those former students that come back as well, you know, they're, they're very astute people. They realize that, that they're looking at their future, their future talent pool. So when they come back in, you know, they're looking around the room, they might be, they might be given a presentation on something that's maybe quite technical, or they might be given a presentation on, you know, this is my career and this is where I've been. But at the same time, you know, you can see they're scanning around the room and they're thinking, right, who here is, is paying attention? Who, who could I see working with me in the next five to 10 years time? They're astute people. As well. [00:21:22] Speaker A: So in your time, obviously in education and your roles as well, Craig, as a T level examiner, standards verifier and so on, you've seen trends around built environment education. What kind of trends can you describe to the audience? [00:21:40] Speaker B: I mean, I think we're always rightly focused on sustainability as a thing. I think now we're sort of post pandemic. We're really looking at building information modeling, advanced technologies, if you like. And of course, over the recent years, the use of adoption, if you like, of AI and I think qualifications, especially in built environment, are going to become more focused on things like building information modeling and AI so that they can be applied to sustainability. And I think that's kind of the message that we've. We've got to push to young people, as you say, to get them hooked in. Yeah, I think it'll be. There'll be a lot more around those types of skills. [00:22:27] Speaker A: Yes. In a sense then, Craig, one of the other challenges as an educator, talking both about yourself, your colleagues and actually the college itself, is how to keep up with all of these fairly fast changing trends. [00:22:41] Speaker B: Yeah. And there's almost two elements to what anyone who works in education does, especially in vocational education jackets. If you're a history teacher, you know, history kind of stays the same, doesn't it? But when you're a built environment lecturer, then you've got to keep up to date. And it's, you know, something that I've been reminded of in the past, that you have got to keep up to date with these trends and there's different ways of, and different ways of doing that. Obviously, of course, you've then got to keep up from things from an education perspective as well. So something like AI has massive implications in both the built environment sector and massive implications in education as well. And they are, you know, huge implications. Plus I guess there's the, the very technical application as well, you know, using different pieces of 3D software that maybe didn't. 3D software, when I even stepped into education, I wouldn't say didn't exist, but it certainly didn't play a huge part in what we did. So, you know, maybe about seven or eight years ago, you know, I wrote something in my notepad that basically said, you need to learn 3D modeling. And, and you know, I, I had to do it and I enjoy it and I enjoy learning those things myself as well. But, you know, little by little you begin to, you know, you begin to learn those things. So yeah, you do have to keep up. And that is a Challenge, because there is a lot of work when it comes to education, as any educator will tell you, or if you know anyone who's worked in education, you, you probably imagine that they spend all of their life, you know, marking books and preparing lessons. And in amongst that, as a VOC teacher, you've also got to upskill yourself with what's going on in your. In your industry. So, yes, it, it is challenging. That said, it's also fun because these things are fun and if you're not finding it fun and you don't enjoy it, then maybe you are in the wrong thing. But I find it extreme. I find it extremely exciting, you know, the types of technology that we're using at Cirencester College. I mean, to be fair, if you'd have told me three or four years ago the types of technology I'd be using now, I wouldn't have believed you. [00:24:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm going to use a phrase that. I'm going to preempt this by saying this is not meant in any kind of a sexist way or putting people into any boxes of any sort whatsoever. But it's a bit like boys with new toys, isn't it? All that exciting stuff that's happening, that you know, you have to keep up with this for your own sake and for your students sake. But it's actually, like I'm saying, boys with toys and I'm going to qualify yet again. You know, I do a lot of work around technology and the work I do and I have to keep up with trends as well and I love it and I'm obviously not a boy, so I think that's quite exciting. Craig, with all of that said, you've covered a lot and it is a very exciting time, I think, in so many ways. Are there still knowledge areas or skills that you feel are being underserved in construction education? [00:25:31] Speaker B: Well, I think one of the areas I think you sort of segued into that sort of, you know. One thing I'd like to pick up, I don't think the majority of my students are still male. And I am again, very lucky in that I've had a lot of female students who have gone on to be very, very successful. But I think in the built environment sector, at least here in the uk, we are still missing out on encouraging young female people into the industry. My feeling, isn't it, it's just a bit of a gut feeling that actually, over the last couple of years, we seem to have plateaued out a bit on the amount of young women coming into the industry, at least from my experience now. I mean, I'd love to hope that someone would comment on this and say, actually Craig, you're wrong. More females have entered the construction industry in the last five years. But from my own personal point of view, you know, I think we could do a lot more to encourage young women and people from black and ethnic minority backgrounds into construction. You know, I still think there's an opportunity there. Yeah, in terms of skills, as much as we talk about technology and things like that, they're all amazing. I think the real skills that we, we need to develop are still things around the basics of real effective communication, be that talking to each other or written communication or even, you know, hand drawing and being able to sketch stuff. I don't think, you know, we can't lose those things because we can't rely on technology. It might be a part of our everyday life and it's not going anywhere, but it does still break. And sometimes you just need to be able to draw something very quickly and you need to be able to explain something to someone during a phone conversation. So I think, yeah, I think those type of skills shouldn't be forgotten. And you know, to have a diverse workforce, I know lots of people have done studies recently on, you know, if you have a diverse workforce in your company then you're more likely to be profitable and quite considerably more profitable. And I think all of you know, a lot of larger companies recognize this, They've obviously read the same reports and other industries like technology recognize that you've got to have people from, you know, you've got to have a diverse background and to say, working at a college, six form college. I, all of my colleagues are very diverse. However, I think construction in the built environment is still viewed as maybe not being that diverse. And that obviously puts up a barrier. If you are one of those people from, if you're a young person and you're looking at the built environment as a potential career for you, and if you look into that career and you don't see other people like you, then it maybe doesn't feel very welcoming. I can give you a very short story of I went to a large construction conference here in the UK maybe about six or seven years ago and there was a panel of people, as you can imagine, in one of these lecture hall theater things, lots of people sat down looking at them and you know, this panel of people was telling us how we've got to encourage more young people into construction. And that panel of people was essentially, I can say It, I looked at that panel of people who were telling me how to get young people into construction and I just thought actually every single One of you, six or seven, is basically a gray haired man in his 50s or 60s who's white and wearing a gray suit and a blue shirt. [00:29:19] Speaker A: Oh dear. [00:29:19] Speaker B: Yeah, and a tie. And the person who was hosting was the only person who was not wearing a gray suit. And the person that was hosting was George Clark, the well known TV architect. And I, and I did have my hand up, but I wasn't chosen to say anything. But there we go. [00:29:40] Speaker A: Maybe they said like what they were. [00:29:42] Speaker B: Hearing, the sort of slightly angry looking man in the corner. No, I wasn't. It was, it was a very interesting thing and it's good that the subject is raised. But I think we need to look at ourselves. You know, the industry needs to look at ourselves. And if you're as a young person looking to get into something, it needs to, you know, you need to be made to feel welcomed. You know, you need to see you. [00:30:03] Speaker A: Absolutely. I think, I think it's like, from what you're saying, Greg, I think it's a combination of how to make it like. Again, I'm going to qualify what I'm saying before I say it. It's basically how to make it sexier and more diverse and interesting for younger people. [00:30:19] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it comes back round again to, you know, how do you get those people, how do you encourage those people into construction? And I believe it's through this, you know, one of those things is through the use of technology. And as you say, you know, make showing them that it is an exciting industry. It is something that has a real impact on the world around you. It is something, and it's something that can give you a career for life and it's something that's ever changing as well. So you know what, those job roles that exist now, you know, may not exist in the future and they might have been replaced by another job role. You know, who knows what job roles we're going to have in the future in construction. Are we going to have to have an artificial intelligence manager? You know, are we going to have, you know, again, if you'd have told me a few years ago that you'd have had people like BIM managers and corporate and social responsibility, social value managers, no one would have guessed that maybe 20 years ago teaching people, it would. [00:31:17] Speaker A: Have been laughed off the building site, I imagine. [00:31:19] Speaker B: Quite possibly, yeah. To be fair, Jackie, I come from an age where even if you'd have told someone that you had a health and safety manager, you might have been laughed off the building site. [00:31:29] Speaker A: I want to touch on sustainability because that's something that I know it's important to you also, and obviously it's very important to us here. Constructive voices. How do you integrate sustainable practices and principles into the courses that you're overseeing? Greg? [00:31:43] Speaker B: We teach, like, in a way of case studies, and we make sure that each of the case studies that we do, and these can be quite short, sharp case studies, things that only last a couple of weeks. You know, we're not at degree level. It's not long case studies where people, you know, have got all the time in the world to do things. But we make sure that those case studies have all got an element of sustainability within them. And if a student hands a piece of work in for some feedback, as lecturers and as people giving that feedback, I think, anyway, I try. And if nothing about sustainability has been mentioned in my feedback, I try and give them something that says, have you considered, you know, is this a sustainable thing? Could you have picked a better material? You know, what's the. Is there an alternative? Have you really thought about this? So, for example, where we've just finished up a little case study with our year one students about modular construction, and they were asked, produce a little model, a little revit model and some views, using some rendering software. Now, a lot of those students will probably have sent me something where they've just put a material on the outside of the building and not really thought about it. So, you know, in my feedback to them, I'm going to challenge them and say, well, look, have you thought about where that material comes from? What is its impact? Or have you just, you know, chosen brick because it was the easy thing to do? [00:33:15] Speaker A: So it's sort of integral to the way you're teaching. [00:33:19] Speaker B: Sustainability has been a subject or unit in the majority of construction qualifications for a very long time, and I'd like to think it's making a very big difference to the world. So it does come as second nature. But, yeah, we do have to remind ourselves, I guess we do have to remind ourselves that it's something that we should always be putting in there. Do you really need a roof there? Couldn't we have a green roof? Or have you thought about how you're going to use sustainable drainage systems to manage the rain coming off of that site, that sort of thing? [00:33:50] Speaker A: So, yeah, I mean, it leads really nicely, Craig, onto your own visions for the future of construction or built environment. Education, especially with what we've been talking about, obviously the growing emphasis on how to attract the young people in with the digital tools and sustainable practices. [00:34:12] Speaker B: Oh, how? That's a big question, isn't it? [00:34:14] Speaker A: It is. [00:34:15] Speaker B: I know it is a big question. You know what, what would I like to see happen? I mean, on a personal note, on a really, really personal note, obviously I, you know, at the end of my career I'd like to look back and I'd like to see lots and lots of people who I've taught, you know, making a big difference to the world, making any difference to the world, you know, and bear in mind I am, you know, I'm not saying it's me, I am a very small part of that. It's very much student driven. On the bigger picture, I'd like to see that built environment and the kind of technologies maybe working closer with other sectors, especially things like digital, especially things like engineering. I think we can all come together and make better buildings. In terms of construction education, I'd like to see that people have a lot of options available to them to access the industry and the industry is seen as a really, really viable option for young people. As I said earlier on, we compete with other sectors for the attention of these young people. And I'd like to see that there's a real wide range of choices for all young people. And to be fair, for anyone who's also deciding, you know, maybe they're mid career and they want to change into something else, it just so happens that I focus on, you know, my, my thing has been young people. It's you know, people who are school leaving age. But yeah, I'd like to see there's a, there's a wide range of options for people. [00:35:57] Speaker A: The mid career comments there, Craig, is also very interesting because I don't know apart from going back to uni or are there transition courses maybe similar, you know, to what you're teaching that are available to that, that age group? [00:36:13] Speaker B: Yeah, there are, there are. If someone is in the, in the position that they feel that they want to transition, you know, into, into built environment again, you know, in over the last 20 or so years, I mean I've been very fortunate to teach on other qualifications and there absolutely are qualifications. We have things called higher national certificates and higher national diplomas which to be fair, a lot of my T level students do go on to study and those can be studied part time or at distance now and again, you know, technology makes that easier. There are people out there who provide these level Four qualifications. So that's kind of university first or second year university level over here in the uk and, and people can do them a variety of places, their local college or even online. So there are, there are options for people who are switching careers as well. And that hopefully gives people a broad basic knowledge of kind of some of the more technical parts of the construction industry, you know, and again, I'm very lucky. I've taught adults in the past who transitioned from taking a career break or working in another industry or have even had other things happen to them in their lives. It just means that they couldn't access education between the ages of 16 and 21. So there are things that people can do to transition in later in life. And that is important as well because, again, we're missing. We need good people. [00:37:42] Speaker A: You've obviously had an extremely interesting and extensive career to date in education and construction. And this is going to be one of those questions. You're going to be like, jackie is annoying me again. What achievement are you most proud of? I know it's difficult to whittle it down to one. [00:37:59] Speaker B: What achievement am I most proud of at the moment? I think what I mentioned earlier on, it's nice to look back and see some of those students that I started with maybe about 20 years ago who have been very successful in their career. And I'm not saying that's due to me, because it certainly isn't. It's due to them. You have, all of us who work in education, you will chip in a little bit, shall I say, to, you know, to someone and just that, you know, they've done a qualification with me or part of a qualification and they've learned something and then they've taken that something and they've done something else with it and something else with it and something else with it. So, yeah, that's probably what I'm most proud of. Might have just been that moment where, you know, you flicked a switch in someone's head and they thought, oh, actually, you know, yeah, I can do this. And seeing them 20 years down the line is always nice. [00:38:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:38:48] Speaker B: And you bump into people. I like taking students out on trips and things and going to see building sites and every now and again I'll bump into someone who I. Who I might have taught a long time ago or attended one of my lessons and they might say something really nice like, oh, actually, you know, I had someone say once that I made them understand something that no one else had been able to explain to them before. That was quite nice. So yeah, the little moments. [00:39:16] Speaker A: But I suppose whether it's on a building site or whether it's one of your, you know, previous students who come back into a talk to your existing students, it's like a little cycle of life, isn't it, in terms of your input to their education? [00:39:31] Speaker B: Yeah. And you know, as I say, it's not just me. There are lots of us that do this job and, you know, you can't be, you're not everyone's favourite teacher. I'm probably not someone's favorite, I mean, but just, you know, hopefully being a little part of something, of a bigger picture. [00:39:48] Speaker A: Now, with some last pearls of wisdom, Craig, what would you like to say? Is there anything that you would like to leave the audience with or younger people who are listening to this thinking, wow, I'm really glad I listened to this podcast because now Craig has made me feel differently about maybe going to college after all. What would you like to leave the audience with? [00:40:11] Speaker B: If you think, you know, if you're thinking of a career in the construction industry, then there is something for you. You know, you might not know what it is, but the construction industry is very broad. It's very, very broad and you know, there's something for everyone in the construction and built environment industry. And if you're passionate about something or if you, if you're a young person and you think you're passionate about something and you've had, you know, there's maybe something that has inspired you at school, then I'd encourage you to really think about it from a, from a construction point of view and to think, well, you know, if it's drawing, if it's architecture, if it's computing and you want to, you want to explore those things, there is something for everyone in the construction industry and it's something that can, can, can be a career for you. So again, you know, well, maybe you're, if you're a person, type of person and you want to go into hr, then I would encourage you to, to look at the construction industry as a, as a place because there are lots of people of different types that work in the construction industry and I suppose, you know, go and find out about it and go and speak to people at your, you know, your local college or your university, or go and speak to people who are in the industry, industry. Maybe you've got family, friends, but, you know, ask them, you know, ask them the questions and be a little bit proactive about it and, you know, take those steps. You know, it's not all about working on a dusty, noisy, wet building site, there really is something for everyone, and it really is something that can affect all of us. You know, those buildings you build, those. Those buildings you design, those buildings you set out are going to be there for potentially hundreds of years, and they're going to be there, you know, long after us. [00:41:59] Speaker A: Fantastic, Craig. So I think that you've motivated the audience a lot, and it's been a really great conversation. So thank you very, very much for your time today. [00:42:10] Speaker B: Genuinely, Jackie, my pleasure. I'm very honored, you know, to be asked onto something like this. And I've listened to a few episodes of your podcast, and I was introduced to you, obviously, as you know, by. By Richard, who was on one of your podcasts a few months ago. Now I think, talking about his situation, which is. [00:42:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:42:29] Speaker B: Which I will leave people to. To listen to that podcast. [00:42:33] Speaker A: That's really a nice idea, Craig. Yes, of course. I will refer to that in the episode page for your episode that we're recording right now. So we'll leave it like that. This is constructive voices.