College hosts pupils from Lothian schools for annual construction competition

Edinburgh College played host to 50 local school pupils as it held the Edinburgh heat of the annual Construction and Built Environment Challenge (CABEC) this week.

Young people from Trinity Academy, Castlebrae Community High School, Inveralmond Community High School, Forrester High School and North Berwick High School descended on the College’s Forthside construction facility to compete against each other in a series of challenges.

The CABEC competition, organised by the Scottish Electrical Charitable Training Trust (SECTT), sees around 300 pupils from schools across the Lothians compete in regional heats, the winners of which meet in a final to be held in Edinburgh in January 2019.

Pupils learned basic construction and engineering skills by completing tasks set by lecturers from Edinburgh College and Edinburgh Napier University. Challenges included: laying monoblock paving, laying roof tiles according to set designs and manufacturing paper bridges which were then tested to see which teams’ held the most weight.

Trinity Academy and Cstlebrae Community High School were judged to be the winners on the day and progress to January’s final. Further heats will take part in November and December.

Edinburgh College curriculum manager for Built Environment Juliet Harkin said: “It was brilliant to see so many young people taking part in various construction challenges at Forthside today.

“Events like these are a valuable and innovative way of introducing young people to the construction sector and the careers it offers. It was a pleasure to see the enthusiasm shown by today’s participants and we hope that we can play a role in their future education.”

Event organiser and SECTT Chief Executive Anne Galbraith said: “Today’s event was fantastic, it was great to see lots of pupils from across the Lothians show a real enthusiasm for the challenges they were set.

“The standard of their work was very high and I was very impressed with how well they worked together in their groups on challenges that were new to them.

“Each year this competition brings together lots of pupils to learn about construction and the built environment and we hope that many have been inspired to pursue careers within the sector.

“Regardless of that, every single pupil can be proud of how they performed at this event – they’re a credit to themselves and their school.

“Our thanks go to Edinburgh College and its staff for being fantastic hosts.”