Today members of local council, ESFA, ETF, schools and nurseries, all joined Dr Paul Phillips CBE, Principal and Chief Executive of Weston College and the Mayor of Weston-super-Mare, Councillor James Clayton, who together, officially opened the new Education and Early Years facilities at Weston College.

This new hub will meet the growing demand from employers both locally and regionally to train staff of the future, preparing them ready to join a growing industry.

The Education and Early Years facilities have been developed in conjunction with the Career Excellence Hub employers: Busy Buddies, Little Bears, DaisyChain, Mendip Green, YMCA and Storal Learning, who ensure not only that the course content includes insights of industry leaders, but also that the new facilities will be industry standard to give them real-life experience.

The grand opening included a tour of the brand new £600k Education and Early Years hub that includes:

• Community Room – to allow us to host stay and play and other community sessions.
• Child and Healthcare Room – a multi-functional space for food prep and mid-session naps.
• Primary School Room – an engaging environment full of multi-curricular activities.
• Creative and Exploratory Atelier – a non-traditional learning environment to host messy-play, science activities and more.
• Observation room – includes one-way mirrors so learners do not influence a child’s play.

Sandra Bull, Dean of the Faculty said: “The new hub is really impressive, I’m so pleased it’s come to fruition. It’s really important for us that all learners get real-life experience to ensure they are equipped with the skills and knowledge they need to get ahead in the modern jobs market.”

These new facilities are matched with an exciting portfolio of study programmes. For school leavers there will be full-time college-based courses, apprenticeships plus the new flagship T Level – the gold-standard in qualifications where learners can follow a college-based programme and gain sector experience through an industry placement. Plus, a range of options for adults for those who would like to upskill or re-train as an early years practitioner or teaching assistant.

Dr Paul Phillips CBE, Principal and Chief Executive, Weston College added: “It was a privilege to officially open the new facilities today. This is just one element of a College-wide initiative to ensure we are making aspirational careers a reality for all our learners regardless of their starting point in life.”

The build is co-funded by T Level Capital funding, awarded by the Department for Education.

Find out more

• Courses for school leavers starting in September
• Courses for adults starting in January
• Next open event

Creative Sixth Form learners from Photography and Fashion and Textiles Design A Levels recently visited the city of Bath to elevate their industry-based skills.

Fashion students were able to access the variety of design history to current garments in small groups analyzing the work of Christian Dior, Alexander Mcqueen and the current exhibition, 'Shoephoria' featuring shoes belonging to Queen Mary and Queen Victoria to designer shoes by world renown names such as Vivienne Westwood, Manolo Blahnik and Jimmy Choo.

The young artists were given the opportunity to visit local galleries, photograph and sketch within the beautiful Georgian architecture whilst the Photography learners were exposed to an industrial 'live' photoshoot with two professional models in the city centre.

Fashion lecturer Nicola Stent was so proud of all of the learners during the trip. "They were engaged, inquisitive and pro-active reading the contextual history within the museum, asking me questions of how garment were constructed and discussed within their pairs how techniques were made.

"They represented the college in such a positive manner and I was thrilled to witness them enjoy an educational trip after such limited access to visual culture".

Elinor John, lecturer in A Level Photography, added: "It was a wonderful experience to witness our learners work alongside professional models allowing them to elevate their photographic and industry-based skills"

Amazing experiences all round! We look forward to seeing more trips in the future.

Click here to discover what A Levels are available for School Leavers at our Sixth Form.
 

Click here to learn more about the career-boosting benefits if our Sixth Form Career Excellence Hub.

Our learners have had the unique opportunity to be a part of our Business Career Excellence Hub. This exciting development gets learners closer to the world of work and build their employability skills. Business is an incredibly diverse area of work with specialisms in Marketing, Human Resources, Finance and Operations management among many more.

With a skill shortage currently in the UK, it is vital that our learners are gaining the employability skills needed to enter the job market. Our students will learn key life skills which they can then apply to their College work, creating a win-win situation. Work experience is a fantastic way to meet a potential future employer for the first time and increase your career prospects with them or other businesses that you are interested in.

Within the Business Career Excellence Hub, learners will get to see how a business really works from the inside out and sample some of the career paths that they could follow in the Business sector. Some careers in this area include marketing executives, project managers and business analysts with hundreds more out there to be found.

Learners are always supported during their work experience, with pastoral support to help guide you and mental health and wellbeing support for anyone who needs it.

One of our partners for Business, Victoria Barvenova, Head of Economy at North Somerset Council said “As an employer we are keen to create different pathways for young people and grow our own talent. Our partnership with Weston College enabled us to make some visible changes in how we approach our succession planning and created some great success stories with more to come in the future.”

Katie Dominy, Head of HR for the Soil Association said “The world of work is changing, future citizens of our world are coming out of mainstream education every year looking to build sustainable, meaningful career paths that will not only enable them to reach their full potential in the workplace, but their contrition to the communities they live in and work for. The earlier industry understands this and makes these connections, helps to influence content and opportunities, the better it will build a workforce infrastructure fit for purpose and the future, and find those individuals who are its future.”

For more information on how to apply to Weston College and join our amazing Business Career Excellence Hub, click here.

Growing at more x4 the rate the rate of the UK economy as a whole, the Creative Arts Industry is currently worth £115.9 billion in the UK - It's huge! 

With 2.1 million jobs currently in the UK, the range of roles related to creative arts have exploded, meaning that qualifications in areas such as Art and Design are more relative than ever! What courses are under art? You may just think of art, brushing it all with the same stroke of a paintbrush, but it actually can expand into numerous other industries and subject s you can study such as Fashion, Graphic Design and Game and Animation.

But what are the careers in art? Which course is best for art students? Here's seven creative careers to inspire you...

1. Interior Designer

What do interior designers do? Art is all around us! Every piece of decoration and furniture has been designed by an artist and knowing how to match pieces, making it work cohesively and create an experience in a room (sounds like a tour of a certain Swedish furniture showroom!) is what interior designers do best. 

If you think, interior design is all about colours, arrangement, lighting and function. As well as working with mood boards, both physical and digital, an art and design qualification can equip you with the necessary transferable skills to make an interior your canvas.

Starting salary: £18,000 - £23,000
Experienced: £25,000 - £40,000
Senior: £45,000 +

Relevant courses:
Level 1 Art, Design and Media, UAL Diploma
Level 2 Art and Design, UAL Diploma
Level 3 Art, Design and Communication, UAL Extended Diploma

2. Community Arts Worker

If your main goal is to help people and get more people into arts, this is the role for you. Often focusing on social, cultural or environmental issues, community art workers raise the profile and increase engagement in the arts by organising events, promoting local opportunities, gaining funding and more.

These roles often work with a lot of different members of the community including, but not limited to school children, people with disabilities and homeless people.

Starting salary: £16,000
Experienced: £20,000 - £30,000
Senior: £30,000

Relevant courses:
Level 1 Art, Design and Media, UAL Diploma
Level 2 Art and Design, UAL Diploma
Level 3 Art, Design and Communication, UAL Extended Diploma

3. Graphic Designer

From logos and branding to illustrations and signage, graphic designers help to bring visions to life and tell a brand's story.

Using digital software, such as the Adobe Creative Suite, graphic designers often work with clients to develop concepts and communicate information and messages through a huge range of media.

These roles are perfect for creatives who are organised, adaptable, have a keen eye for attention for detail and can work to deadlines.

Starting salary: £15,000 - £19,000
Experienced: £25,000 - £35,000
Senior: £35,000 - £50,000

"Can't I just learn graphic design on my own?" Whilst you can self teach, a course in Graphic Design will teach you the essential underpinning knowledge organisations look for such as alignment and brand guidelines, all whilst having access to industry experts, industry standard software and getting experience through project briefs from real employers.

Relevant courses:
Graphic Design and Digital Arts, UAL Extended Diploma

4. Animator

Animators bring stories to life. Working in 2D, 3D and CGI, animators can bring characters from the page to the screen with a heavy reliance or artistic ability and technical knowledge. 

Operating mainly out of production stuidios, animators can get to work with a whole host of genres, styles and projects.

Animation isn't just drawing cartoon frames either, you can go into working on special effects for TV and film and also translate those skills into the gaming and music industries.

Starting salary: £12,000 - £15,000
Experienced: £23,000 - £36,000
Senior: £36,000 +

Relevant courses:
Level 3 Game and Animation Production, UAL Extended Diploma

5. Fashion Designer

Clothing, an industry that will always be thriving! 

Work with fabrics, textiles and colour to bring together designs that people will love.

Designers often specialise in a specific area such as footwear, sportswear, childswear.

As a designer, communication, teamwork and identifying trends are key aspects of the role.

Starting salary: £16,000 - £18,000
Experienced: £25,000
Senior: £42,000 +

What subjects are needed to become a fashion designer? With transferable skills in a lot of our art and design courses, our Level 3 Fashion diploma is the perfect course for those looking to get into the industry.

Relevant courses:
Level 3 Fashion, UAL Extended Diploma

6. Game Artist

Artists are some of the most important roles in the ever-growing gaming industry. You'll play a pivotal role in the game production process, either focusing on 2D design for concept or 3D for finalising creations. Depending on the size of the developer roles can also vary, either creating multiple assets or specialising in individual elements such as characters, textures, environments, lighting and so much more.

Starting salary: £18,000 - £25,000
Experienced: £30,000 - £40,000
Senior: £40,000 +

What is the course for game designing? Take a look at these relevant courses:
Level 3 Game and Animation Production, UAL Extended Diploma

Level 1 Art, Design and Media, UAL Diploma
Level 2 Art and Design, UAL Diploma
Level 3 Art, Design and Communication, UAL Extended Diploma

7. Exhibition Designer

Art and design involves a lot of practical work, bringing ideas to life and designing an experience - All of these skills are frequently used by exhibition designers.

As well as the expected art installation/public exhibition, designers also work with external companies to create temporary displays, cultural galleries, display stands, and more - all with the aim of communicating the client's message in order to appeal customers.

What is the salary of an exhibition designer? Although salaries can vary, here's an idea of the kind of salaries you can expect:
Starting salary: £18,000 - £25,000
Experienced: £25,000 - £35,000
Senior: £35,000 - £50,000

Relevant courses:
Level 1 Art, Design and Media, UAL Diploma
Level 2 Art and Design, UAL Diploma
Level 3 Art, Design and Communication, UAL Extended Diploma

Click here to learn more about all of the different courses taught at our Loxton Campus

On 11th and 12th of November 2021, Level 3 Computing learner Mircea Ionescu will be competing in the grand finals of the prestigious WorldSkills national competition!

WorldSkills UK is a biannual ‘skills olympics’ that supports young people by testing their ability to achieve world-class standards. This national event normally takes place in the Birmingham NEC, however this year the 64 different competition areas are being hosted separately at across the country.

Mircea is one of nine students across the country to have made it to the finals in Web Design, which will be hosted by Weston College at The Winter Gardens Pavilion in Weston-super-Mare.

We caught up with the Nailsea School alumni who added:

"I first heard about World Skills from my Website Development Lecturer in my first year, who encouraged me to take part in it.

"In order to get selected for the World Skills finals, I had to design a professional looking website during the qualification stage of the competition. Then during the semi-finals I had to complete the full front-end development of a website testing my skills in HTML and CSS production.

"I am very excited to have been chosen to compete in the World Skills finals, I also feel a great deal of pride in the recognition of the hard work of both my lecturers and I.  

"Weston College has played a very important role in my journey to the World Skills finals, all the skills I have learnt during my time here are being tested during this competition. My tutor, Jason Hill, has helped me to get ready for this with great coaching and competition preparation.

"I have learnt so much already during my time with the World Skills contest. I understand how to work under the pressure of time constraints better than ever and I have vastly expanded my knowledge of development languages such as PHP and Javascript."

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

At the College each subject area forms its own specific Career Excellence Hub, endorsed by relevant sector employers which help to create a study programme with lots of career boosting benefits, WorldSkills competing opportunities is one of these.

Mircea will also be joined in the finals by University Centre Weston (UCW) student Jack Kimmins.

After finishing his Level 3 course, Mircea plans on staying with the team at Weston to study the BSc Applied Computing degree course at UCW.

The winners of all WorkdSkills competitions will be crowned at a ceremony hosted by TV presenter Steph McGovern from her Packed Lunch studio on Friday 26 November.

We'd like to wish Mircea the very best of luck! 

Click here to learn more about our Computing courses and Career Excellence hubs

In September 2021, our first cohort of Construction Career Excellence Hub learners started their journey into the construction industry.

Although Weston College has always connected closely with industry to deliver career enhancing experiences for our learners, the new Construction Career Excellence Hub heightens this – and offers an array of career boosting benefits.

Some of these benefits include:

• Training programmes co-designed by employers
• Skills training required by industry
• Industry placements
• Networking opportunities
• Soft and hard skills development.

With over 53,000 construction companies in the South West, there are many opportunities for people looking to enter the industry, and through the Career Excellence Hub, learners will be equipped with the 21st Century employability skills required by industry.

David Bowdley, Operations Director at Galliford Try, one of the endorsing companies, said: “The Construction Career Excellence Hub presents an exciting opportunity for us to invest in local talent, and develop learners who could become the future leaders in our business.

“Weston College is the perfect location for people to develop their construction skills, and we are thrilled to play a role in your development and offer further assistance on your journey into our industry.”

Importantly it is having a really positive impact on our learners as well.

Level 1 Carpentry learner, Josh, said: “The course is very enjoyable! I think the best thing is that I have had the opportunity to put my skills into practice, by building a bike shed for Nailsea School.”

You can find out more about our Construction Career Excellence Hub, here.

Animal Management is a hugely important industry, which is worth over £2 billion to the UK economy. We have launched our Animal Management Career Excellence Hub to meet the need of careers within the sector, with over 59% of households having pets, the need for vets and animal specialists is rapidly increasing.

The Career Excellence Hubs have been created to get our learners to reach their ultimate career goals by focussing on future employability and developing the skills that they will need to have a successful career!

Our Animal Management Career Excellence Hub is focused on providing our learners with the right learning environment to help them to reach their potential. Lecturers provide concepts and ideas through their own industry experience which is valuable to the students as it provides them with 21st Century employability skills and ‘real world learning’ through employer briefs and real-life case studies and scenarios. The course is co-designed with local endorsers which include Noah's Ark Zoo, North Somerset Agricultural Society and Puxton Park. Through our endorsers we offer enhanced work experience and provide unrivalled exposure.

They will get to study in state-of-the-art learning spaces at Puxton Park which enables them to develop industry-specific skills working within the park’s extensive farmland, facilities and wide range of farm and domestic animals. This gives our learners the opportunity to gain a valuable hands-on experience and prepares them with all the tools they will need to succeed in their educational journey to their chosen careers.

With the Animal Management campus being in the heart of Puxton Park, it gives the learners the opportunity to gain a valuable hands-on experience and preparing them with all the tools they will need to succeed in their educational journey to their chosen careers. Animal Management is an exciting and varied industry with many career paths our learners can take, these include zoologist, veterinary nurse, and animal physiotherapist.

For more information on how to apply to Weston College and join our amazing Career Excellence Hub for Animal Management, click here.

On Saturday 6 November the Fashion, Theatre, Media Hair and Make-up students joined dancers at the Winter Gardens for Strictly Fun Dancing.

The Level 3 Diploma in Fashion, Theatre and Media Hair and Make-Up is an occupational qualification that provides learners with the knowledge, understanding and skills to work as a make-up artist. The students volunteered their skills to do the hair and make-up for the dancers for this annual charity event.

Hair styles included chignons, wigs, bouncy curls and the make-up included skincare preparations, eyeshadow, primer makeup, both liquid and cream products for sheer coverage, plus glitters, contouring and lashes.

Sandra Bull, Dean of Faculty, said: “At Weston College we passionately believe in supporting every person that walks through the door to reach their ultimate goal, by focussing on future employability and developing the skills needed to have a successful career. Today did just that, by providing an element of work experience for our learners who are on their vocational programmes.”

A spokes person for Weston Hospicecare said: "We are delighted to be joined by a group of Weston College students and their tutors at our Strictly Fun Dancing event at the Winter Gardens. The students were incredible and helped the majority of our dancers prepare for their five minutes of fame on the dancefloor. From hair (including a black gents wig!), makeup and stylings all the students were super-professional. We look forward to welcoming them back in 2022!"

Devon one of the students said: "I'm always ready to learn new things and this experience today has been so exciting, it has been amazing to be part of strictly."

Find out more about hair and beauty courses

• Courses for 16 to 19-years-olds
• Courses for adults
• Next open event

As part of the Career Excellence Hub in hospitality and catering, a Chef Apprentice has access to an exciting masterclass programme, giving them the essential chef skills. Masterclasses are delivered monthly by industry professionals including producers and artisans including expert guest bakers, butchers and fishmongers.

Today's Chef apprentice masterclass is led by Mark Chapman, the Executive Chef from Gambas Tapas Bar, Bristol, who will guide the apprentices through a seafood and shellfish masterclass, where they:

• Shuck fresh oysters and serve them au natural with lemon and tabasco.
• Peeled, de-veined and cleaned prawns, served as a traditional Spanish dish called ‘Gambas pil pil’ (garlic chilli prawns).
• Shuck and cleaned fresh scallops. These were cooked on the plancha and served with a roe bechamel, freshly sliced jamon and parsley butter.

We also looked at portion size and weight, understanding fish monger skills and the terms and techniques used, plus discussed the the farm to fork journey.

Mark is a classically trained, fine dining chef, with over 16 years experience. He started his training as a chef in Sydney, Australia completing a 4 year apprenticeship whilst working full-time in restaurant’s. He developed his skills in a range of Michelin equivalent ‘hat’ restaurants in Sydney, including Sepia (a French Japanese fusion restaurant), The Light Brigade Hotel, Bistro Ortolan and Wolgan Valley (a 5 Star exclusive Emirates hotel in the Blue Mountains).

Mark moved to Bristol to be with his now wife in 2012. Where he has since worked in a range of restaurants in Bristol and Bath since then including at the Michelin Star hotel The Bath Priory.

Since joining Season + Taste as a Head Chef at Bravas in 2016, Mark became an Executive Chef of the whole group in 2018 and is enjoying putting his fine dining experience into some more creative ventures like Gambas, Cantina and Bakers and co.

He became the Executive Chef of Gambas Tapas bar in 2019 earning the restaurant a Michelin plate and volunteers for a number of Bristol charity unions such as Bristol Food Union, for whom he managed a community of 11 of Bristol best restaurants to provide meals for frontline workers and vulnerable people during the pandemic.

He said “there is a shortage of staff in the hospitality industry but the only way the industry can overcome this is by investing time, training and money into the new generation of chefs who are 21 years or younger, and allowing them the space to work alongside those in the industry who are older with more experienced.

"It’s harder to find staff for both kitchen and front of house, so empowering the younger generation with creativity, stability, flexibility, motivation and interest is the only way to ensure the new generation not just join the industry but stay and grow in it also. This is why I am here today!”

Mark’s final words to future chefs is “Cook with Passion.”

Find out more about being a Chef Apprentice:

• Courses and Apprenticeships for school leavers
• Next open event