Wigan and Leigh College Painting and Decorating stu-dents go to town with ISG!Decorating the Mayor’s Parlour projectAs a NSAfC we have a good working relationship with Wigan and Leigh Col-lege and as part of our commitment to engaging with the local community on the Wigan Town Hall scheme we developed an idea to engage with students on the College’s painting and decorating course. We contacted the College to ask if the students would be interested in decorating the Mayor’s Parlour, providing five students with the opportunity to work on the iconic Town Hall building.

The Challenge:Agreement by Broken Colour to host the work experienceIn January 2015 the NSAfC approached Broken Colour Decorators’ Supervisor John Murphy for his team’s support of five students to come onto the site to assist with decorating the Mayor’s Parlour with his team of experienced decorators.

The Response:Broken Colour hosted the five students, sharing experience and skills with the students and providing them with extensive experience on a busy site.

The Results:Following the success of this idea, ISG Project Manager, Tony Dougan worked with Wigan and Leigh College Tutor, Stuart Hardman, to extend the work experience opportunity to all of the 2nd year students for a six month period. The students attended on one or two days per week to work with the experienced team of decorators from Broken Colour.

32 students were supported with painting and decorating skills over a six month period. The Project Skills Coordinator has collected evidence that 28 students completed five days work experience and a further four attended for one day each, totalling 144 days of work experience on site.

The site team completed inductions with all of the students, giving them the benefit of their experience in construction site health and safety issues, taking the time to check their understanding of the site rules and ensuring the safety of the students working on site with experienced decorators.

Tony Dougan shared his skills and experience, mentoring the students and providing the opportunity for extensive site experience which will help to enhance their skills with future employers. The students worked in a variety of Town Hall spaces, completing all aspects of painting on various surfaces, an experience they will remember each time they pass the Town Hall.

Transferrable Solutions: ISG Project Manager, Tony Dougan believes it is beneficial to support a number of work experience placements on site at any one time, as they support each other and it sparks healthy competition between the candidates. It is important for the placements to feel valued, part of the team and to have made a contribution to the project.

“Young people the same age as the students are often given bad press for their behaviour. The students we worked with were well mannered, showed interest in the work and were quick to ask for advice and information.The feedback we got from them indicated that they had enjoyed the experience and were looking forward to coming back to work with our experienced decorators to gain more experience.”John Murphy, Supervisor, Broken Colour Decorators 19/6/15

“We discovered some real talent amongst the students involved with the Mayor’s Parlour pro-ject and following the success of this scheme we extended the paint-ing and decorating op-portunity for a further six months and suppor-ted 32 students in total with painting and decor-ating work experience on this iconic Town Hall restoration project.”Tony Dougan, ISG Pro-ject Manager19/6/15

Quote from Stuart Hardman, Wigan and Leigh College Tutor, 22/6/15

My students at Wigan and Leigh College gained great experience by having the opportunity to go on site working with a team of qualified Painters and Decorators on a large project for ISG at the Town Hall in Wigan this year. The students really enjoyed their time there as it gave them a good insight of what site work is all about from attending a site induction to tool box talks, Health & Safety awareness and working alongside great decorators doing some intricate work. They all said their time there is one they will never forget as they really enjoyed the experience and working with the people at ISG and the decorators at Broken Colour, who were very friendly and helpful in many ways.