A week in the life of Jack Parkinson

What better way to learn about the world of housebuilding, than by gaining some valuable hands-on experience. It’s precisely what Jack Parkinson, our most recent work experience placement, who has set his sights on becoming a bricklayer or a joiner, did.

We had the pleasure of welcoming Jack to our head office last week. The 15-year-old, who is currently in Year 10, spent a week with us, learning everything there is to know about our industry-leading processes and award-winning work.

Real life tasks

No two days were the same for Jack, who got to experience life at Russell Homes from every possible angle. He spent time with all of our different teams, ranging from Legal, Technical and Design, to Construction/Site, Planning and Commercial.

Rather than just simply observe us at work, he got the chance to roll up his sleeves and get stuck into some real life tasks. This included creating a site and a floor plan, pricing up materials, as well as attending meetings with our planning team. Jack was also given plenty of opportunities to get out and about too – he visited our Brook View development in Wincham and got to check out the site for South Heywood.

Valuable insight

With so much to see and do every day, Jack’s week with us was over before he knew it. However, we do hope that he has come away from the experience with some extremely valuable insight and has taken away a new-found love for creating floor plans and letting his imagination run wild on house designs.

When we asked Jack what his highlight of the week was, he told us: “Creating the floor plans and designing my own house type because I got to use my imagination and could do anything!”

Jack designed a five-bedroom detached home, named ‘The Parkinson’, complete with a ‘man cave’ that was kitted out with a pool table, dartboard and full gaming set-up; he really embraced the task and has created a vision he can truly be proud of.

Now that his work experience is over, Jack is back at school where he is studying for his GCSE’s, choosing Religious Studies, Physical Education and Design Technology. But, his connection to Russell Homes is far from over, thanks to the fact his dad is our Technical Director.

And who knows, perhaps one day Jack will go on and turn his five-bedroom dream home vision into reality!