CHEW VALLEY SCHOOL WINS METRO MAYOR’S FIRST GREEN JOBS GRANT

Chew Valley school is the first of three West of England schools to win a new grant to encourage local youngsters to consider green careers.

Metro Mayor Dan Norris visited the school on Wednesday at 11.30am during his second Jobs and Skills Summit to meet some of the students taking part.

The school beat off stiff competition to receive a grant of £15,000 from the West of England Combined Authority led by the Metro Mayor to develop a special environmental careers programme.

Students will learn how green jobs offer an exciting and rewarding future across four weekly sessions. The young people will find out about the huge range of green jobs on offer from wind turbine technician roles to opportunities in green finance and get top tips on how to access useful and relevant work experience.

A recent study by social mobility charity Speakers for School showed young people have a real appetite for pursuing green jobs but that 56% were not sure about the required skills to get one.

Metro Mayor Dan Norris said: “Our amazing west of England is changing before our eyes. Jobs nobody had even thought about ten years ago about are springing up, while others are rapidly changing. Take the electric car revolution or the phasing out of gas boilers and you can see in a flash that mechanics and heating engineers are going to need a completely new skills set. In my manifesto I pledged 23,000 green jobs so I’m pleased a £45,000 cash injection from the West of England Combined Authority I lead is helping talented young people to identify and access good-quality green jobs. Chew Valley is a trailblazer here and I hope to use their success to roll out this green careers programme much further across the West”.

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