Monklands Summer School: Inspiring the Next Generation of Builders and Healthcare Heroes

Dozens of pupils have taken part in a hands-on summer school to explore careers in construction and healthcare. Run by the Monklands Replacement Project (MRP) to support the new University Monklands development, the week-long programme took place in July and gave students from North and South Lanarkshire a behind-the-scenes look at both clinical care and construction.

The project is committed to its Community Benefits scheme, which aims to build community wealth through educational and work experience opportunities.

The Monklands Replacement Project welcomed pupils from across North and South Lanarkshire last month (Image: NHS Lanarkshire)

Lesley Aitken, MRP community benefits engagement lead, said: "We had more than 60 S4 to S6 pupils across the three Summer Schools, which was fantastic. It's a really educational, inspiring and fun experience and, as ever, the young people were engaged, bright, willing to learn and really enthusiastic about hearing from our professionals and finding out about careers that were new to many of them. They gave a presentation to us at the end, showing their level of knowledge and how their confidence grew over the week."

Construction Summer School

The construction Summer School was delivered with support from Currie & Brown, the project’s lead advisers at the MRP’s Immersive Suite at University Hospital Monklands.

David Tacey, apprentice project manager at Currie & Brown, said: "We discussed project management, quantity surveying, cost consulting and how to manage costs on a project while assessing risks. Our building surveying team spoke about how to manage the building’s physical risks and how infrastructure looks, reacts and breathes."

Pupils also visited the Wester Moffat site in Airdrie, which will be the future home of the new hospital.

Paul Rough, a student from Holy Cross High School in Hamilton, said the hands-on experience was invaluable. "Since I may be looking for a career in construction it appealed to me to get some experience. The week was great. We started with project managers, moving to quantity surveyors and then my personal favourite day was actually going on site. We saw the project, the people in the offices, the day-to-day works, everything that it takes to build this massive hospital."

Labaran Lucas from Airdrie Academy agreed that the programme was both informative and enjoyable. "I found it quite fun, especially the fact that we had to get on site and we could see around it. I would say it's definitely worthwhile – you learn a lot about how these things are actually built and you also learn about communication."

Clinical Summer School

The clinical summer school focused on the patient care journey after a stroke and introduced pupils to a range of healthcare roles.

Chelsea Wright, MRP clinical lead for nursing, said: "The purpose was to follow that patient and learn which clinicians needed to be involved. I delivered the first class and the students were fantastic. They had loads of questions for me and they really wanted to learn. A lot of them already had ambitions to work in healthcare. What was really interesting to see in their final presentations was that everything we’d taught them and all the clinicians they’d met had triggered something in them to think that the clinical roles they’d learned about could be a career option."

The Monklands Replacement Project welcomed pupils from across North and South Lanarkshire last month (Image: NHS Lanarkshire)

Ivana Oscar-Nliam from Hamilton College said she learned something unexpected during the programme. "It was really interesting to hear from the healthcare staff and especially the speech and language therapists because we all found out that they specialise in a patient being able to swallow after a stroke alongside the communication aspect, which most of us didn't actually know."

Nico Uzor, a pupil at St Margaret’s High School in Airdrie, said: "I enjoyed the practical activities with orthoptics (specialised eye care) and the physiotherapists. We learned about electrotherapy (using electrical energy to stimulate nerves, muscles and tissues) as well and I thought that was quite interesting – it was something I'd never seen before. And just getting an insight into the day-to-day lives of the clinicians – I thought it was quite cool."