Learning In Lockdown - Best Achievement Award

Last year, when the UK went into its first lockdown, SCAPE ran a digital work experience programme that, with the support of our partners, helped 2,000 students across the country gain an insight into a range of construction roles.

Poppy Bailey, winner of the "Best Achievement" SCAPE award, sponsored by Willmott Dixon, received a special prize after the week was over.

After completing the Esteem Pavilion Challenge, to design a sustainable community building for a growing community in Dubai, along with the other students who took part, Poppy submitted a full written report, for review against the standards for achieving her Industrial Cadets Silver award.

Leanne Day, national framework manager at Willmott Dixon, also had the privilege of reviewing them for the "Best Achievement" award, and was very impressed with Poppy's submission, commenting:

"Poppy’s was a well thought out design, and the effort she had gone to building the model was brilliant. She has shown an excellent technical ability to understand and articulate the ergonomics of the building and answered the brief extremely well.”

Poppy is a year 10 student at Hadley Learning Community Secondary School, one of the 300 schools across the UK that took part in the Learning in Lockdown initiative. Her hobbies are dancing and socialising with friends. When we asked her why she signed up to the programme, she said:

I act as the bridge between Willmott Dixon and the local communities in which we work.

As a SCAPE ambassador, I engage with potential clients, as well as building upon existing relationships. My work ensures that on every project the needs of the surrounding community are always at the forefront and that the benefits can truly be felt by local people.

As part of her prize, I spent 1:1 time with Poppy over the course of eight weeks. Our virtual meetings included various employability-based activities, as well as mentoring, coaching and support sessions.

Poppy was also able to support me and my team in exploring and developing a potential internal programme. With the way in which society is changing due to the pandemic, Willmott Dixon is now identifying the best way to deliver employability initiatives such as CV writing workshops for young people - in a safe, virtual setting. Poppy was invited to share her ideas for engaging other students and help us to shape the programme further, whilst also receiving a CV building and confidence building sessions herself.

Poppy received a letter of recommendation from Willmott Dixon for her hard work and commitment – she also received a voucher, as a thank you and well done for her participation.

Well done from everyone at SCAPE, and a huge thank you to Willmott Dixon for sponsoring the award and providing Poppy with such valuable support for her future career development.