Washwood Heath students having completed their WoW visit

A group of Year 7 students from Washwood Heath Academy in Birmingham had an opportunity to see behind the scenes when they visited Service Birmingham as part of a Mosaic World of Work visit.

Service Birmingham, which is a partnership between Birmingham City Council and Capita, welcomed the students and their teachers to their Contact Centre at Fort Dunlop and gave them a special tour of the centre. The students heard about the vast range of services the Council provides to Birmingham citizens and businesses and learnt about the role of call handlers. They even had an opportunity to hear for themselves the call handlers taking incoming calls.

Shabir Ahmed from Service Birmingham and a mentor on Mosaic’s Secondary School Group Mentoring Programme arranged the visit, he said: “Service Birmingham prides itself in supporting the local community and works with many areas of the community as part of our CSR activity. We were delighted to welcome local school children to the Contact Centre at Fort Dunlop where they were able to get a taste of the services we provide to citizens. For many of the staff within the Contact Centre this is their first job from leaving school and so we were able to illustrate a transition from the school environment into a work environment.

Visits of this nature will help Service Birmingham and in particular the Contact Centre to engage with future customers and potential employees. The Contact Centre deals with millions of calls every year for housing, council tax, public events, leisure services, benefits claims, parks, parking, environmental enquires and many other services provided to the citizens of Birmingham.”

Commenting on why Washwood Heath Academy engages with Mosaic, Nusrat Sadiq, a Link Teacher said: “The mosaic programme is an opportunity which constitutes development, empowerment and active progression to enhance young people’s lives. The benefits mentoring brings to individual students and the wider school community is that it gives young people an opportunity to have face to face contact with professionals and adds value to their learning and contributes to raising aspirations. The World of Work visits offer the students a chance to expand their knowledge and act as gateway to real life context learning.

When Mosaic asked the students about what they had learnt from their visit to Service Birmingham, they said:

“I have learn that you should follow your dreams.”

“Getting a good career can get you further in life.”

“You have to push yourself to move on.”

“Work hard in school and get a good grade”

Mosaic would like to thank Service Birmingham for hosting the visit and the staff in their contact centre for making the students feel so welcome.

Mosaic’s World of Work visits connect employers from a wide range of backgrounds and industries with young Muslims and their peers aged 11-25 years old and living in deprived areas of the UK. The visits are an integral element of our secondary school group mentoring programme, connecting the students’ mentoring discussions with the real world.If you are interested in hosting a World of Work visit for our students, please contact us for more information.