Pupils get innovative to mark major school expansion milestone
LANDMARK: Hull FC players Davy Litten and Charlie Severs, front, with representatives from Hull Esteem, Hull City Council and Sewell Construction
Pupils at The Boulevard Academy had a creative time to celebrate the commencement of steelworks in their new school expansion.
The £6m three-storey extension will increase capacity of the school by 300, taking the total to 900 pupil places.
It will include new dedicated rooms for food technology and textiles, meaning the academy will be able to offer courses in these subjects for the first time. There will be an additional multi-use games area and an activity studio added to the site, improving the outdoor exercise spaces for students, as well as enhancing the PE provision.
Two specialist music rooms with four new practice areas for lessons and rehearsals will also be introduced, whilst improvements to computer science facilities will add two extra suites and additional classrooms.
The project is being delivered by Sewell Construction in partnership with Hull Esteem Consortium LEP Ltd as part of Hull City Council’s £50m investment into the city’s schools.
Sewell Construction has recently been working alongside Mark Swallow, a Senior Lecturer in Construction Project Management at Sheffield Hallam University, to test the use of virtual reality applications to facilitate discussions around safety and logistics during site inductions and safety workshops.
INNOVATIVE: A pupil from The Boulevard Academy experiencing the new school extension through virtual reality
From this, the site team identified an opportunity to showcase this technology to a selection of year nine students at The Boulevard Academy, on Massey Close, giving a short presentation on ‘digital construction’.
Mr Swallow said: “Digital technology continues to evolve, and these advancements are shown in the way it’s becoming integrated into our everyday lives.
“I was delighted to be invited to The Boulevard Academy to present a wide range of exciting careers within the construction industry in an innovate way to the students and give an overview of how digital technologies can be adopted in different ways.
“Using the virtual reality application, I created a visual of what the new extension is going to look like. Through these sessions, the students have been able to ‘walk through’ their new school. It’s certainly raised a bit of excitement!”
Having access to mobile devices and smart technology to assist in work operations is becoming more common within the construction sector. Virtual reality is one such technology that is opening up new opportunities within construction design and on-site management.
The Boulevard Academy occupies the site of Hull FC’s former Boulevard ground and the virtual reality session culminated in Hull FC players Charlie Severs and Davey Litten surprising the students and performing a “steel kick” over the bars to mark the occasion.
STEELWORKS: Hull FC Players Charlie Severs and Davy Litten with The Boulevard Academy staff and pupils
Janice Mitchell, CEO and Principal of The Boulevard Academy, said: “The children loved the VR session and doing something quite unique to mark such an exciting milestone on the new build of our growing school. Then to go out and watch the Hull FC players in action was just the cherry on top.
“The open engagement with Sewell Construction, Hull Esteem and Hull City Council really adds another level to the construction period.
“We’re committed to providing our students with an outstanding, well-rounded education to give them the platform for success, and it’s activities like this which give a different approach to the students’ curriculum, offer new career opportunities and provide an insight into a sector students may not have considered up until this point. It just shows the vastness of the construction industry, the roles available, and the creativity that goes into projects of this scale.
“As we’ve reached this milestone, it’s been great to come together to pay homage to the school’s history, and be part of its innovative future, moving onto the next chapter for The Boulevard Academy.”
Rob Page, Sewell Construction Site Manager added: “It’s been great to do something more innovative to mark this first major milestone on the extension to The Boulevard Academy.
“On a lot of our education projects, we invite younger students along to leave a lasting legacy by signing the steel, but with Boulevard’s rich sporting heritage, we wanted to go that one step further and be a little bit more creative in our approach.”