News and events

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

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

On the morning of Friday 15th October, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson MP visited GKN Aerospace’s Global Technology Centre (GTC) in Bristol to see first-hand how GKN Aerospace is shaping a more sustainable future of flight.

The Prime Minister, accompanied by Foreign Secretary Liz Truss MP, officially opened the £32M centre, which was jointly funded by GKN Aerospace and the Aerospace Technology Centre (ATI). The Cabinet Ministers saw the break-through technologies being developed, from advanced and lightweight composites today, to the use of precision robotics for the manufacture of next generation wings. The Weston College Group work in partnership with GKN Aerospace as a training provider and as part of this visit the Prime Minister spent time discussing the skills required by the workforce of the future with the Weston College Group’s Principal and Chief Executive Dr Paul Phillips CBE, and Degree Apprentices from GKN and Airbus.

Conversations revolved around Zero Carbon Emissions for aerospace for the future and the necessary development of new fuel and energy systems. With each campus committed to reaching Net Zero by 2030, Weston College partners with high standard organisations such as GKN that help to create brighter and greener futures. 

The Prime Minister also saw how apprentices had access to the latest technology being developed for the manufacture of tomorrows aircraft and the group discussed the use of composites, robotics and augmented reality with demonstrations from GKN engineers.

The apprentices were also able to share their degree apprenticeship journey and how they saw the experience benefiting them from being able to study for their degree whilst having the exciting experience of working on the next generation of aircraft as GKN Aerospace and Airbus apprentices. Dr Phillips commented: “I felt honoured to be able to outline to the Prime Minister the exciting partnership that has been established with the GKN Global Technology Centre and the inspiration apprentices are taking from studying in the Weston College, West of England’s Institute of Technology dedicated on-site training facilities. I was also very proud to see our degree apprentices voicing their knowledge and experience, it was a thoroughly insightful and enjoyable morning.”

Image: The Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, Liz Truss visit GKN Aerospace in Bristol. Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street