Nescot students win WorldSkills bronze

Nescot students have triumphed in a national skills competition, with four Creative Media students winning bronze.

Today (Friday), students packed into the college’s Skills Park boardroom with their families to watch a live broadcast of the results ceremony, hosted by Channel 4 presenter Steph McGovern.

The college’s four-strong Media students were announced as the bronze medal winners in the Digital Production category. Nescot also had students competing in Beauty and Hairdressing. 

“We’re hugely proud of all six of our students for getting to the national finals, and to come away with a bronze medal is amazing,” said Julie Kapsalis, Nescot’s Acting CEO and Principal.

“Skills competitions like WorldSkills give our students the opportunity to compete with the best students from across the country, so it helps them to really push their technical skills.

“Just as importantly, competing also helps the students to gain experience in the broader skills they need to excel at work, like self-confidence, communication and time management.”

Elodie Claus, Kaiya Jackson, Ruben Mangatal-Francis and Adam Rose are all second-year Creative Media students, and they travelled to Cardiff in early November to compete.

Their task was to make a 30-second promotional video from start to finish as a crew of four, with three days to plan, film and do the post-production.

The team were tutored by Jess Taylor and Curriculum and Standards Coordinator Abi Partington-Moran, both former Nescot students who won silver at WorldSkills UK during their time here.

Before they travelled to the finals, the students took part in a college project to make a 20-minute television show and broadcast it live from Nescot’s studio, which they said was ‘invaluable practice’.

“It was a complicated brief and a short timescale, and we had to bring a lot of elements together, like pre-recording VTs and managing a live set,” said Kaiya, speaking before the final.

“Our tutors showed us how we can learn from all the different parts of the project, like working under pressure and thinking on our feet, and that is invaluable practice for WorldSkills.”

You can read more about how our Media students prepared by clicking here. 

Katie Arnold travelled to Blackpool to compete in the Advance Beauty category, in which she had to carry out a French manicure with nail art, body exfoliation, a compression mask and a facial, as well as doing a presentation to a panel of judges.

Katie studied Level 2 and Level 3 at Nescot, and is now studying her Professional Certificate in education, which she is balancing with her job as a teaching assistant at Nescot and being a beauty therapist.

“My goal is to teach Beauty Therapy here at Nescot,” she said. “This is an amazing college – I’ve loved studying here, and I want to inspire students the same way my tutors inspired me.”

You can read more about Katie on our website here. 

Hairdressing student Maria travelled to Belfast and took part in eight different tests, including commercial cutting, creative styling, and complex colouring techniques including balayage.

She has only just started her Level 3 qualification, which means she is a year ‘behind’ the other competitors, but she was determined not to let that hold her back.

Speaking before the finals, she said: “I am going to WorldSkills UK for gold, nothing less. My teachers keep telling me I deserve to be at the finals, and that’s definitely the attitude I’ll be taking with me.”

Maria, who is 40 and speaks three languages fluently, has set up and runs a hair and beauty salon in Islamabad in Pakistan, which is now so successful she has just tripled the size of the floorspace.

You can read more about Maria on our website here. 

WorldSkills is known as the ‘skills Olympics’, and this year it featured more than 500 finalists competing for gold, silver and bronze in 62 disciplines held at six colleges across the UK.

As well as the medals, the students are vying for the chance to represent Britain in the biennial WorldSkills contest, which will be held in France in 2024.

Nescot has a strong history of success in WorldSkills, especially in Media and Computing, and previous students have gone on to take part in international competitions too.