Published: 23 May 2024
Last year, at our annual conference, as part of our mission that every young person should know about land surveying as a career, we launched an initiative to encourage Members to reach out to local Scout troops. This was very well received, and Members are now demonstrating that the same information can be easily tailored to target other groups of young people, such as those in secondary education.
After hearing about the Scouts initiative at Conference, Atlantic Geomatics was spurred on to take the plunge with two local schools based near the company’s headquarters in Penrith. The aim was to inform the students about the career prospects of working in land surveying, with the hope of encouraging additional interest in taking up work experience placements with the firm.
‘Lunch and Learn’ at school to find out about land survey careers
Representatives of Atlantic Geomatics gave a presentation to sixth-formers at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Penrith and held a ‘Lunch and Learn’ session for all ages from Year 7 to Year 13 at Lancaster Royal Grammar School.
The upshot of these events was that Atlantic Geomatics has received more applications than ever for work experience placements, clearly demonstrating that there is real appetite among young people to get involved and find out more about a career in land surveying.
Our Vice President, Oliver Viney, Managing Director at Atlantic Geomatics, said,
“We simply tweaked the presentation Caitlin from Storm Geomatics had prepared for the Scouts, to tailor it more specifically to a slightly different audience. We were really pleased by the levels of interest the students showed in what we had to say.”
Work experience placements in surveying firms
Atlantic Geomatics has been offering work experience placements for some years now. The young people spend two to three days out and about with a senior surveyor on site, collecting data in a variety of settings, from construction sites to more rural environments and then spend some time in the office, processing the data and producing final plans. This provides excellent insight into the life cycle of a project and how surveyors contribute to it.
Atlantic Geomatics has already had very positive outcomes with work experience placements. For example, one of its current Trainee Surveyors, Tom Rawle, did some work experience with the firm in Year 12 and then came to work there full time after completing his A Levels. The next step will be for him to complete The Survey School surveying course.
Oliver continues,
“There are some challenges when it comes to having young people on certain sites but these can generally be overcome, with the right risk assessments and adequate controls in place. We have found clients to be very supportive when we have explained what we are looking to achieve. The quality of students has been consistently excellent. They are very bright, very capable and, given the opportunity, can bring a huge amount to a business.”
Most schools have a specific week set aside for different age groups to undertake work experience placements, but they will also welcome offers of placements outside these times, often during school holidays. To find out more about outreach into schools, contact Katie Holt, Business Development Manager at The Survey Association by emailing katie@tsa-uk.org.uk.
