Amongst everything that’s on offer, we’ve chosen our five favourite things that will be at the ‘We Are Weston’ Freshers’ Fayre 2019. So, in no particular order, here they are…

Upskilling is not just a new qualification that can be added to your CV, but rather an opportunity to strengthen your attributes, and open doors for progression within your organisation.

There are many ways in which you can upskill, from short courses to apprenticeships. Since the introduction of the apprenticeship levy in 2017, employers with an annual wage bill of over £3 million must pay into the levy, and can only claim money back through apprenticeships – meaning there is funding available to cover the cost of your training.

There are many advantages to upskilling, here are 3 reasons why we think you should:

Build on your skillset

As well as strengthening your existing skills, upskilling will also allow you to learn new information and abilities. As a result this will develop your talents further, and therefore enhance your future prospects.

Career progression

Training in new areas and developing skills increases your chances of landing promotions when they become available. Upskilling also shows your dedication for your work and career. This will not only enhance your CV, but also impress your employers. By constantly looking to improve and add new qualifications to your name, it shows that you are motivated and possess a strong work ethic.

Keep up to date with industry

Upskilling will allow you to take advantage of learning the latest industry trends and theories, which will keep you on top of your game. This can be particularly useful in industries that are evolving with the introduction of new technology.

At Weston College we can support you on your journey to improve. We offer over 50 apprenticeships, which can be tailored to suit your employer’s needs to fill skills gaps. To find out more, click here.

Generous staff at Weston College’s Training Solutions are donating money to charity this year rather than sending Christmas cards to one another.

A decision was made by the staff to place one card to all staff members on a communal noticeboard and then make a donation to international charity ‘World Vision’.

Training Solutions, who are one of the largest training providers in the South West, offer a diverse Apprenticeship programme. It was therefore decided that all monies raised would go towards buying ‘Woman’s Apprenticeship’ gifts from the charity.

These gifts pay for less privileged women to learn new skills, from handicrafts to tailoring and baking, and will help unemployed women find a job and earn an income for their family.

High unemployment is hitting women particularly hard in third world countries. They are struggling to gain marketable skills and losing out on opportunities even when they have the qualifications and ability to do the job. This project aims to change this.

The Women’s Apprenticeship, which can be purchased from www.musthavegifts.org, is just £18, and the Training Solutions team are hoping to buy as many of these as they can this year.

World Vision ‘must have gifts’ are special because they are genuinely needed. Other gifts include mosquito nets, birth certificates, chickens and scholarships for children.

Training Solutions offers a wide range of training including Apprenticeships and NVQs, the majority of which are delivered in the workplace. They currently work with more than 1000 businesses and organisations supporting them to achieve significant improvements in overall performance. They achieve this through helping organisations maximise the performance of one of their most expensive resources - their people.

For further information please call Training Solutions on 01934 411594.

World Vision is a Christian relief, development and advocacy organisation dedicated to working with children, families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice.

Four Weston College apprentices have been recruited by a high-growth local company which launched with three staff in 2007 and now employs over 40 people.

Purplex Marketing, based on Oldmixon Crescent, has taken on four IT apprentices as part of its ambitious growth strategy.

College Apprenticeships Recruitment Coordinator James Wilmot said: “Apprenticeship applications have risen considerably because businesses like Purplex are seeing benefits.

“They can mould someone to the company's needs and put them at the heart of their business. More than 90 per cent of our apprentices are offered permanent jobs by their employers at the end of their training programme.”

Purplex Marketing, part of the Ascot Group, was founded by Andrew Scott and is one of the fastest growing marketing technology companies in the UK.

 It plans to double its 40-strong staff by 2017 in areas such as web design, search engine marketing, app development and social media.

Andrew said: “I am delighted to welcome the four new apprentices from Weston College.

“Our digital marketing division continues to grow rapidly as we attract clients locally and from across the UK and Europe.

“It is essential we develop our team to keep pace with growth and new technologies, and introducing Apprenticeships will help train the next generation of digital marketing experts.”

More than 90 per cent of Weston College apprentices were offered permanent jobs by their employers at the end of their training programmes – a 46 per cent increase in filled jobs compared to last year.

The College currently supports 1,200 Apprentices and works with 1,400 employers. It is the biggest facilitator of Apprenticeship programmes in the region.

Its new Training Solutions, based at the South West Skills Campus on Locking Road provide businesses with relevant and flexible training programmes.

The College offers a wide programme of Apprenticeships to people aged 16 and over with adults looking for a new career via training or an alternative to A Levels.

The College's Apprenticeship programme can be studied at Levels 2, 3 and 4 and learners can progress through these levels while continuing to work alongside experienced and skilled staff.

The 50-strong team of work based learning Assessors work with more than 1400 organisations in the South West.

The College was also the first in the South West to launch the Higher Apprenticeship Scheme enabling employees to gain university level qualifications while working in areas such as accountancy, care and business.

Although apprentices receive workplace training, they access the same College benefits as students including bus passes, gym sessions, discounted driving lessons plus hair and beauty treatments.

For more information about taking on an Apprentice contact the Training Solutions Team on 01934 411 594.

TWO performing arts students from Weston College have been commissioned by a theatre in Taunton to perform their solo shows.

Charlie French and Katrina Titcombe, who are both on the College’s BA (Hons) Performing Arts course, will be performing at The Brewhouse, in Coal Orchard, on Saturday 4th June.

Charlie’s show, Scratch, is a piece exploring who we really are through the words of others. It asks whether words convey identity or just paraphrase the thoughts people hear from those around them.

He said: “'I'm thrilled to have my work commissioned by the Brewhouse Theatre.

“Not only is it fantastic experience for an aspiring actor to see what it's really like to work within the industry, it is also a great encouragement.

“It is because of my training at the Wessex Academy of Performing Arts that I feel I have grown in overall confidence since starting the course and have ultimately matured as a performer, both in terms of my knowledge of performance and the skills that I have learned.”

Katrina’s show, You Are Invited, revolves around a few items of clothing which combine to perform a wedding in 40 minutes.

She said: “I am really excited for my first commissioned show. I think it will be a really good experience and a start to the outside world of performing.

“I think it will be a really good experience and a start to the outside world of performing!

The course has helped me develop my confidence within performing. It's made me explore more of what theatre really is and different ways it can be explored.”

The College’s Higher Education Section Leader in Performing Arts, Ged Stephenson, said: “Performing arts students held a festival of contemporary performance in which each student performed their own 40-minute solo piece.

“The Brewhouse was impressed with the festival and chose two of the performances to be put on at their venue as a double-header.”

The performance will begin at 7.30pm and tickets, priced £5, are available via www.thebrewhouse.net or 01823 283 244.

What is the first thing you do if you want to find out about someone you don't know?

Chances are, you answered that question with ‘Google them’ or even ‘Facebook them’. Practically everyone has an account on one of the many social media networks out there, and search engines like Google can pull up vast amounts of information that people have shared online.

Everything you share on the internet should be treated as a permanent record of who you are as a person. Even if you delete pictures and posts they might have been screenshotted and shared by your friends, and could still be accessible using an internet archive search such as Wayback Machine. Many celebrities have paid hundreds of thousands of pounds to try to remove images from the internet to no avail.

A lot of employers will use the internet to find out about the kind of person they’re employing, and when you start working for a company many people will check out your Facebook profile to learn more about their new colleague.

Big companies use social media monitoring software to protect their reputation and can easily find posts which mention them; so if you’re going to talk about your employer online make sure that your privacy setting reflect the amount of information you want them to see!

Don’t let your social media profiles have a negative impact on your reputation and employability – follow our useful guidelines:

• Don’t share anything online that you would not be comfortable with everybody knowing
• Ensure your public photos are employer-friendly – they are often the first impression
• If you are unsure about a post, be cautious and don’t post it – or post it privately
• Be thoughtful and polite when commenting on a public page
• Don’t post confidential information about yourself or others
• Report anything you see that might result in someone causing harm to themselves or others
• Create a LinkedIn profile so that you can easily control your professional image.

Our ASPECT team is on hand for further guidance on social media and employability...

The 2016/17 academic year was an exciting and ambitious year for the Weston College Group, which saw record success rates and the creation of sector-leading facilities. These successes were appraised at the College's annual Business Breakfast, which broght together hundreds of businesspeople from across the South West. Here is a summary of what the College did between September 2016 and August 2017...

We’ve received national recognition for our teaching

The Association of Colleges was so impressed with our teaching that they awarded us two out of the 11 Beacon Awards presented this year. Judges recognised our work towards creating an inclusive and engaging learning environment for our students with special educational needs and disabilities and our offender learners.

We’ve invested £25 million in our facilities

The money has gone towards refurbishing classrooms, installing the latest technology, and creating some of the most high-tech learning environments in the country. Most impressively, the successful refurbishment of the Winter Gardens has secured the building’s future as a community asset. We plan to invest a further £20 million in the current academic year to create specialist facilities for health, sport and construction.

Our success rates are at an all-time high

Our 16-18 achievement rates grew by 4% to 86.5%, and 90.7% of our adult learners successfully completed their courses. The overwhelming majority of our apprentices were taken on by their employers at the end of their course. Our 90% student satisfaction rate places us 18th on the FE Choices survey of colleges across the country.

We’ve been working with businesses to create apprenticeships

We work with over 1,400 businesses to deliver apprenticeships, and our new relationships with employers such as the Bristol Port Company, the Ministry of Defence and Rolls Royce means that we are bringing more and more apprenticeship opportunities to young people and adults across the South West.

We’ve put on free courses for the community

2017 saw us announce our first free adult leisure courses to great success. The courses helped hundreds of adults reengage with education, as well as teaching them some useful skills such as car mechanics, cooking, dancing and bricklaying.

For more information, contact the Marketing Department

 

Find out more

We have been using Weston College for our apprenticeship program for the last three years now. Weston College has been extremely helpful with this process and we have always been impressed by the candidates that they have given us.

The process worked very well as a representative from Weston College came and met with us to learn about our business and the office environment that we run. They then sent us CVs for candidates they felt would be suitable in our required role and we handpicked candidates from these for interview.  We started off by offering a traineeship program to the successful candidate which lasted four weeks, this allowed us to analyse their suitability for an apprenticeship and to see if they would fit in with the culture of the business.

It is very difficult to judge a candidate from an initial interview as some candidates may not be confident in a formal interview yet could be very confident and capable in a team environment. This initial four-week program also allows the candidate to decide if our work place is the correct choice for them rather than just going for an interview, accepting the job and then finding that they don’t feel comfortable in that work place.

We were very sceptical when we first took on an apprentice due to their age and maturity, however, I am pleased to say that they have exceeded our expectations at every level.

It is important to us that the candidates are smart, conscientious, hard-working and willing to learn. We strongly believe that you get out what you put in, which is why we expect the apprentices to show commitment to us and in return we will show commitment to them. We believe in continual training and upskilling our staff, even after the apprenticeship has finished, allowing the candidate to be successful in their chosen career.

We have found the apprenticeship program extremely beneficial to our business as it has allowed us to mould them into the role we required within the business. 

Two of our apprentices have passed their qualifications on time and the third is due to finish this month. We have been so impressed with our apprentices that we have offered them full time employment and they are now very valuable members of our team.

One of our apprentices has gone on to become a fully qualified Mortgage Adviser and the other is now a full qualified Will Writer.

We would highly recommend the apprenticeship program and Weston College.

Nick Barnes,

Director

EveryStep Financial

Weston College held a successful fundraising week in March, raising £3600 for local charity Weston Hospicecare.

Over the week students and staff from across the College took part in various activities, with the aim of raising money for the local charity.

The main event of the week was dress up day, in which staff and students all over the College got in the spirit, dressing up as superheroes, unicorns, octopuses and air hostesses for the day.

There were also a number of awards given out for those who contributed to the week’s success. The College’s Inclusive Practice Faculty won the overall award for fundraising, after students came up with inventive ways of raising money, including writing the first sentences of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in coins.

Weston Hospicecare was thrilled with the money donated to them.

Rachel Mansfield, community fundraiser at Weston Hospicecare, said: “We are once again enormously grateful to the students of Weston College for the fabulous support offered during their RAG week celebrations.

“We’ve loved following the students’ exploits, and we’re thrilled by the incredible amount of money raised for Weston Hospicecare – it really will play a big part in enabling us to support people with life-limiting illnesses and their families across Weston-Super-Mare and beyond.

“We’d also like to say a special thank you to the students from Weston College’s Inclusive Practice Faculty, who won an award for an outstanding contribution to the charity week for a video they created on behalf of Weston Hospicecare – we enjoyed welcoming the students to the hospice when they were filming, and were really impressed by the super piece of work they put together.”