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The Company has a number of educational initiatives.
- The Chartered Surveyors Training Trust was set up by the Company in 1984 and became a separate self maintained
Trust in 1987. Its objective is to provide work based learning for school leavers who aspire to join one of the professions
of the Built Environment – Chartered Surveyors, Engineers and Architects.
- Changed entry and qualifications for membership of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, means that the
Trust may now provide one of the routes for qualification as TechRICS. The Trust's annual intake is normally 20-30
people, many of whom have in the past become Chartered Surveyors.
- The City Seminar Course is run for the benefit of practising surveyors, architects and engineers – probably in their
30's – who wish to gain a greater knowledge of the workings of the City, its markets and institutions. This is of benefit to them
as they take on more senior positions within the profession. Approximately 30 delegates attend this 4 day course each
year, which is normally held in February. It is hosted by the major financial institutions and the Course ends with a
dinner in one of the Livery halls.
- For many years the Company has run the highly successful UK Property Marketing and Design Awards (PAMADA). Set up in 1991 by the late Anthony Bull, the mission of the Awards is to raise the standards of property marketing and design. For the 2005 Awards the Company worked with Estates Gazette to make the Property Marketing Awards an even bigger and more important event in the property market calendar, and this will be continued for the 2006 Awards. Click here to see the Past Awards Listings
AMD receiving the PAMADA Victor Ludorum.
- Through our Educational Committee, we are actively involved in the promotion of the profession to 14-16 year olds
in a number of schools, before they have to make their career decisions. The Charitable Trust provides an element of
funding for this initiative.
>>Watch the Company's Education Initiative video
- A number of Livery Companies have made substantial donations to the Ironbridge Gorge Museum, a World Heritage Site and the
birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. In 1987 we sponsored the reconstruction of an early 17th Century ‘crack'
framed building used as a Land Agent's office. The Company's involvement, both physical and financial, still continues.
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A Message from Delva Patman, Master of the Company in 1999-2000
All Livery Companies share a common ethos to promote and support education. The Chartered Surveyors are no exception.
Successive Courts have initiated a number of educational activities ranging from the unique Chartered Surveyors Training
Trust through to the annual City Seminar and Property Marketing Awards.
All have the same objective – to provide opportunity, improve and maintain standards and raise the profile and status of the
profession. However, there was no central focus for this diverse range of initiatives. Therefore, it occurred to me that if we
had a dedicated Education Committee, with the overall remit to coordinate and provide a forum for such work, this would enable us
to explore other initiatives and involve more Liverymen.
With the Court’s Approval, the Committee was set up in May 2000, under the Chairmanship of Rob Bould.
This provided me with the opportunity to suggest a new initiative, involving schools, an area of education that I felt had been
overlooked for too long.
My idea was to capture the imagination of 14/15 year olds by showing just how interesting and rewarding a career in surveying
could be, at the time when they would be making choices about examination subjects and the sort of jobs they might want to have.
This simple idea has now been developed into the Schools Initiative Project.
We know that a number of Liverymen have expressed a particular interest to become involved in education and the long term nature
of the Project should provide just this. For the project to be as successful as the Youth Training Trust, we will need Liverymen who
are not only willing to visit schools to build on the existing relationships, but also be prepared to give time to individual pupils
over a long period, many of whom will not have had access to the privileges that many take for granted.
It is very early days, but from the enthusiasm shown by the schools, there is all the evidence that this venture will be both
rewarding to the Company and the individuals involved.
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Left: Daniel Carter, Chairman Elect (Education Committee) Right: Rob Bould (Chairman) |
Are you interested in contributing to the education of young people? The Livery Company is very active
in this field and has risen to the challenge set by Lord Mayor Sir Anthony Joliffe GBE in 1983, encouraging Livery Companies to help
inner city schools. The Company’s Education Committee was established at the instigation of past Master, Delva Patman, in May 2000
and has met regularly over the last three years with the objective of coordinating all of the Livery’s education initiatives and
implementing the Company’s Education Policy, which is:
"Within the resources of the Company and its individual members to promote the pursuit of excellence within the profession;
to increase awareness within the City of the role of Chartered Surveyors and to help individuals with entry into the profession."
The Education Committee therefore stewards and coordinates the Livery’s City Seminar, School’s Initiative (explained below),
the Toby Sutton Award (an annual research legacy administered by the Livery Company), the competitive annual awards to students of
the Guildhall School of Music and the educational aspects of the Livery’s Property Marketing and Design Awards.
Through the Education Committee, the Company has formed close links with four schools where it can, through presentations and
targeted mentoring, promote both the property professions as a practical option for young people and also an understanding of the City.
These initiatives are acknowledged by the schools to open eyes to the outside world and to foster understanding of routes to
qualification which are more practically based than traditional full time education, and dovetail with the work of the Chartered
Surveyors’ Training Trust.
The committee intends to work in future in close cooperation with the Trust, which was established by the Company in 1984 and
became a separate, self maintained Trust in 1987. Its current Chairman is Liveryman Peter Sanders. The objective of the Trust is
to provide work based learning for school leavers who aspire to join one of the professions of the built environment – Chartered
Surveyors, Engineers and Architects, although currently the greater demand is from surveying trainees.
The Trust has a full time staff and is mainly funded by the Learning and Skills Council. It acts as a patron to trainees by
arranging work based training through placements with employers, supported by theory learning at colleges and universities. It is
the only learning provider in England offering Advanced Modern Apprenticeships in surveying. Currently, demand for trainees from
employers exceeds supply ö a very healthy scenario from which to grow the trust’s operations, and an encouraging indicator for both
the economy and the profession.
The Government’s educational framework has recently been revised, promoting National Vocational Qualifications (NVQ’s) and Modern
Apprenticeships which, for those with the necessary aptitude, lead to university education. For those who have seen the growing
dominance of non-practical, academic university education as unhealthy, the new system contributes balance, by creating an alternative
route to higher education, based on work related learning, close in many ways to the old fashioned concept of apprenticeships, which
were of course a bedrock of the purpose of the original Livery Companies. It is therefore very fitting that the Chartered Surveyors’
Company should find itself playing an important role in this process. It is also healthy that the vocational training route can be
navigated by young people who may prefer to earn they way through the process, and thus avoid the millstone which many perceive the
student loan system to be.
The Company’s Education Committee is a separate entity from the Training Trust and seeks to augment the Trust’s activities through
the promotion of the profession to 14-16 year olds in a number of state schools located in areas of need, with whom the Company has
established relationships, with the objective of identifying opportunities within the built environment professions to young people,
before they have to make their career decisions. In this way, the Education Committee aims to identify potential recruits for the
Training Trust programme. The Charitable Trust provides an element of funding for this initiative.
Currently, there are 55 trainees at various stages within the Training Trust programme. The education committee has active
relationships with three schools where Liverymen involved in the Committee’s work present to circa 700 young people each year, with
mentoring and work experience offered to interested individuals subsequently. Currently the Committee’s work is supported by a number
of Liverymen who have an active interest in the Committee’s work and thirteen firms have offered work experience for one-week periods.
The Committee is seeking support from more Liverymen who could act as a host for young people within their firm. This is not an
arduous obligation and it is very rewarding ö there are no employment or health and safety issues as the young people are “guests” within the office, to get an idea of its work, and not temporary employees in any way. The Committee’s Programme Director provides a
full backöup service to assist with arrangements.
The success of the Trust is best understood by looking at examples of it’s product. One girl who joined the Trust at sixteen with
3GCSE’s, left the Trust to read architecture at South Bank University where she obtained a 1st Class Honors Degree. Another lad with
only one indifferent GCSE, stayed with the Trust for some seven years and secured an Upper Second class Honours degree from the
University of Greenwich and has had a highly successful career as a Chartered Building Surveyor since. Of equal interest are the less
dramatic successes – equally impressive considering the odds against which the individuals have battled. And this is the key to what
the Trust does, helping young people achieve more than they could by themselves through providing, not only opportunity, but also by
fostering belief in themselves with a quiet back-up always available. It recognises that there are those who develop more slowly than
others and that poor academic results early in life do not necessarily mean there is no real ability, and also that there are often
external factors such as family disunity, which can cause disappointing school results.
The Education Committee’s schools’ initiative also provides wider insight into our profession through presentations, work experience
and other opportunities, to widen the students’ experience generally. It therefore encompasses (for example) arranged visits to the
Guildhall and St Paul’s Cathedral, to the Ironbridge Museum and a day’s rugby training with the Harlequins (thanks to a very generous
Liveryman). Such events have proved to be great successes with the schools concerned, who have neither the resources nor contacts to
arrange such events themselves.
If you would like to contribute to the rewarding work of the Education Committee, either as a school visitor or as a work experience
host, pleas contact the Committee’s Programme Director, Pipyn Trustram Eve.
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