Jumping on the Property Ladder with Orchard School

Last week, Bristol WORKS invited 40 Year 11 students from Orchard School to participate in an exciting event ran with UWE and the Bristol Property Inclusion Charter. The session was created to showcase the variety of pathways available within Bristol’s Property Sector, boost diversity and inclusion across the industry as a whole and provide an insight into UWE’s undergraduate property-related courses.  

After arriving on campus bright and early, students were met by various volunteers from across the Property Sector who would be supporting as mentors and industry experts. Students took the opportunity to meet our fantastic volunteers and asked them brilliant questions about their roles and professional experiences as part of a Speed Networking exercise. Afterwards, students were split into their teams, assigned their own industry-mentor and were sent off to work on their creative brief of repurposing an empty unit of The Galleries shopping centre. Within the first few moments of the challenge, students were delegating roles amongst themselves and working with their mentors to establish their team strategy.

Over the course of the event, teams were given full creative reign over their proposals. However, they had to stick within a £1 million budget, organise for 20% of their unit to benefit the local community in some way and ensure their proposal was designed sustainably. Students were given a strict time slot to book meetings with additional industry ‘experts’ which they creatively used to negotiate lease payments and gain advice on permissions, sustainable building methods and budgeting. The experts were impressed with the negotiation skills of many of the students- as shown by the dramatic discount rates in rent for many of the groups!  

Over lunch, many teams took the chance to explore some of the UWE campus, whilst others opted for a working lunch. Having finalised their plans, students then had time to work together to create an engaging presentation that detailed their proposals. To close the event, every team delivered an exceptional presentation to a panel and their peers, and all handled questions from the audience like true working professionals! We were truly blown away by the innovation and creativity of every single group and it was fantastic to see how they’d utilised the expertise from the volunteers they’d met throughout the day.  

We’d like to thank UWE and the Bristol Property Inclusion Charter for supporting us to create such a wonderful event. We’d also like to thank the school staff and our brilliant volunteers from across the sector who provided excellent guidance and support to the students. Finally- a huge well done to the students at Orchard School! They demonstrated excellent teamwork throughout the day and their ideas were truly inspirational!