Birmingham Metropolitan College (BMet) students have cleaned over 6,000 bricks for use in the £4 million redevelopment of the Erdington Skills Centre - building skills for students studying brickwork. The college invested in a brick cleaning machine complete with kit including headphones, hat, goggles and gloves to restore the bricks to their former glory.
Keith Acton, Assistant Faculty Director for Construction at BMet, said: “The bricks formed part of the old Technical School on the site of the Erdington Skills Centre so they are probably around 100 years old. We were especially keen to recycle materials from the original building to keep some historical context. The bricks were transported to the college’s James Watt Campus following the recent demolition of the Erdington Skills Centre building and students studying Level 1 Brickwork were tasked with restoring them to their original glory.”
Student Francis Dean, 49 from Erdington, who is studying Level 1 Brickwork after being signposted to the course from Jobcentre Plus, said: “Getting to use the new machine was extra training for us and it was great to see how the bricks used to look when we had finished cleaning them. It’s a good idea to re-use materials and has been an interesting project to work on.”
Birmingham Metropolitan College is investing almost £4million, of which £1.33million is grant funded by the Skills Funding Agency, in redeveloping its successful Skills Centre in Erdington which is due to open in July 2015 – making a valuable contribution to building futures for people in local North Birmingham communities.
The Erdington Skills Centre currently offers a range of Entry and Level 1 Construction as well as Foundation Learning and ESOL courses for local schools groups, people who are not in education, employment or training (NEETs) and for unemployed adults who are aged 19 or over.
The existing mix of Edwardian and 1950s buildings which used to be Erdington Technical School will be replaced with purpose built facilities including classrooms and workshops which have been specifically designed to accommodate a range of provision including construction trades as well as training rooms with enhanced technology.
Construction courses are currently being run at James Watt Campus but will transfer back to Erdington when the new centre opens.