WorldSkills UK has announced over 400 students and apprentices who will be battling it out across 64 disciplines to be crowned national skills champions.

We are extremely proud to share that this includes four students from the Weston College Group: Three Weston College learners and one degree learner from University Centre Weston (UCW).

Following 2020 and a year without competitions, over 3,000 people registered to take part in the UK-wide competitions back in March.

The finalists will compete for gold, silver and bronze from 9-19 November, with the winners crowned at a ceremony hosted by TV presenter Steph McGovern from her Packed Lunch studio on Friday 26 November.

This year sees the finals taking place in locations across the UK for the first time. From the Industrial Robotics final in Ballymena, to Heavy Vehicle Engineering in Cardiff, Cyber Security in Lanarkshire and Web Design at Weston College, the 25 venues cover all four corners of the UK.

Ben Blackledge, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, WorldSkills UK said: “I want to offer my congratulations to all those that took part in our programme this year, especially the finalists. After a year without competitions due to the pandemic it was really encouraging to see so many people back involved this year.

“Our competitions and competition-based development programmes equip apprentices and students with the lifelong, world-class skills that will help increase UK productivity and competitiveness.”

This exciting announcement is just one of the fantastic career enhancing opportunities available at the college, through our newly launched Career Excellence Hubs.

At the College each subject area forms it’s own specific Career Excellence Hub, endorsed by relevant sector employers which help to create a study programme with lots of career boosting benefits. Thanks to the College’s amazing industry connections, both locally, nationally and internationally, our school leaver programmes are developed by focussing on increasing future employability, and developing the skills learners need to have a successful career in the sector and making them stand out from the crowd when they get to job applications and interviews.

Dr Paul Philips CBE, Principal and Chief Executive of the Weston College Group added: “A huge congratulations to our students Luke, Amelia, Oran and Jack. The Weston College Group really values the skills and experience that the WorldSkills UK competition-based development programmes offers our students.

"We are very much about ‘careers not courses’ at Weston College and this is what has been the catalyst for our sector specific Careers Excellence Hubs.  WorldSkills UK aligns with this perfectly as it is designed by industry experts and enhances the practical skills and knowledge taught on training courses by assessing an individual’s employability attributes against set criteria in a competitive timed environment. 

“I am excited to see our competing learner’s journeys as they build on their employability skills and develop in confidence.”

The WorldSkills UK competition-based development programmes are designed by industry experts and enhance the practical skills and knowledge taught on training courses by assessing an individual’s employability attributes against set criteria in a competitive timed environment.

The programme has a real impact on those taking part, with 90% of previous entrants saying their career progression improved after competing and 86% stating their personal and employability skills had improved.

Click here to see the full details of the finals and the names of all finalists.

Click here to visit the WorldSkills UK website

Weston College has an outstanding set of English and Maths GCSE results again this year. 40% of learners who re-took their Maths GCSE achieved a grade 4 or higher. 63% of learners who re-took English Language GCSE achieved a grade 4 or higher. Both of which are above the National Average which in 2019-20 was 35.7% for English and 28.1% for maths.

Each year we have a combination of new learners to the College and returning learners, who have previously failed to obtain the C grade required to progress to further education.

These results are a huge cause for celebration, and go to show how Weston College supports its learners to achieve.

Kelly O’Connor, Subject Area Manager for GCSE English, said: “I’m immensely proud of my students and am confident that they have paved their way to successful futures.”

Some of the tremendous successes recorded at the College include:

Our extra curricular sports academies provide athletes with outstanding opportunities. We are extremely pleased and excited to announce a third student has gained international honours this year. Bailey Kempster, part of our under 19s football programme, has recently been selected for the England colleges football team.

As well as impressing the academy and senior coaches at our partner club Weston-super-Mare AFC, Bailey has had a successful first two seasons playing national youth alliance football.

This accolade is extremely well deserved and caps off a fantastic two years of development. It is great to see that our football programme is now going from strength to strength with Bailey being the second colleges international to come out of the programme since our official partnership with Weston football club started just three years ago.

We caught up with Bailey who added:

"My time in the sports academy has been a great experience with high level coaching and a brilliant training and games program.

"The coaches, the team and the facilities available has made my time at the academy a excellent environment to work in. They have also given me the opportunity to represent them by nominating me for these trials.

"The selection process consisted of two trials. The first of these was a South West trial which was held at Weston Super Mare AFC and the second was a national trial in Leicester. Each player was then given a minimum of 60 minutes in the matches we played to impress the coaches and show them that you are worthy of a place in the final squad. 

"I can't wait to start on the 1st of July with a game against Chelsea FC. We then have a tournament at the end of July with many professional clubs attending. 

"My advice for someone getting into football would be to stay positive, never give up and be prepared to work hard."

Bailey now joins female rugby athletes, Lottie Dadds and Katie Mackay, as our third international progression for this season. We are extremely proud of the trio and wish them the best of luck for all of their fixtures in the future.

Academy Manager Jack Gadd said:

"This is a fantastic achievement for these athletes and shows how the programmes continue to encourage and produce players for these highest of honours.

"All three have epitomised what it means to be a student athlete here at Weston College. It is great to see our programme helping athletes achieve their sporting goals and are now receiving recognition on the national stage.

"We are extremely proud of the three guys and are looking forward now to supporting the next crop of talent reach its potential next season where we hope to add to this tally across our main performance sports."

Principal and Chief Executive, Dr Paul Phillips CBE added: "A massive congratulations to all three of our national achievers this season. With these successes and the development of state-of-the-art sporting facilities at the Health and Active Living Skills Centre, I'm so proud that Weston College and partners are continuing to put Weston on the map as a hub of excellence and outstanding young talent"