UK Students Offer World Class Show

We've reached a really exciting stage in the lead up to the competition and have just announced 110 colleges and training providers from across the UK who have been hand picked from hundreds of applicants to showcase the best of the UK Skills and talents to a global audience at WorldSkills London 2011 in October.

Representing the whole of the UK the final list of Showcase colleges and training providers were chosen from hundreds of applicants. They represent the highest level of skills talent in the UK and will help to provide an exciting and varied event programme as part of WorldSkills London 2011.

The selected Showcase colleges and training providers have devised innovative and highly visual fun and engaging showcases giving both staff and students an opportunity to shine in front of a huge national and international audience.

Some of the feats on display at the event will include historical costume displays from South Thames College and demonstrations of a multi-touch surface computer developed by IT students at Farnborough College.

A full list of the Showcase Organisations is now on our website.

Shadowing our international counterparts by Chris Ridgeon

In my last post I mentioned briefly that I attended the most recent WorldSkills Competition at Calgary in 2009. It was a great experience and I would like to share some more of that with you.

The purpose of my visit to WorldSkills Calgary 2009 was to shadow the Workshop Supervisor of the Web Design competition, as this is my role for WorldSkills London 2011. Canadians Ryan Jacobs and Mike Ryan were responsible for the setup and running of the competition as Workshop Supervisor and Assistant.

I cannot believe how valuable this experience was! When you are in meetings about running a world class competition two years in advance, it is very hard to visualise exactly how much is involved. For example, I didn't realise we would be up 'till 2am supporting the systems on our area while the final parts of marking were completed!

Ryan and Mike did a fantastic job throughout the competition, they were great hosts and were able to give me all the information that you just could not find out without being there. Although running a WorldSkills Competition is no simple task, you feel a lot more confident when you see it playing out two years before your own event. I also learnt a lot about Canada that you probably wouldn't learn if you went on holiday there - it was a great experience!

At WorldSkills London 2012 the UK will be hosting the Competition and our counterparts from WorldSkills Leipzig 2013 will be shadowing us to prepare for their own WorldSkills. WorldSkills really is a fantastic collaboration of people from all around the globe, it was great working with the Canadians and I look forward to working with the Germans in October 2011.

Join us!

WorldSkills London 2011 is currently recruiting for several exciting roles, so why not consider joining us?

In October 2011, the UK will host the 41st WorldSkills Competition at ExCeL in London's docklands. 1,200 young people from over 50 countries/regions will come together to compete in 45 vocational skills categories ranging from hairdressing to plumbing. Reaching up to 150,000 people, WorldSkills London 2011 will be the largest international skills competition in the world and will act as a vital means of raising awareness of vocational skills throughout the UK.

We are a thriving team working to deliver an outstanding event and lasting legacy. If you think you're up to the challenge and would like a once in a life-time opportunity to be part of this amazing Competition, we look forward to hearing from you: worldskillslondon2011.com/join-us

Growing World Class Talent

To celebrate the talent and world class skills of young people across the nation, UK Skills is to create a garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, taking place from 25th - 29th May 2010.

The UK Skills garden, entitled: "Growing World Class Talent: celebrating the workforce of tomorrow", will be created to promote excellence in vocational education and training and also to illustrate how greater investment in skills and development will help lift UK industry out of recession. The garden's design was chosen on merit by the RHS for inclusion in this year's Chelsea Flower Show and will showcase the wide range of skills required to construct an outdoor space suitable for 21st century living. The garden will be judged in the Urban Garden category at the Show.

A team of talented young people, all under the age of 25, will build the UK Skills garden from scratch using their expert skills, which include: landscape gardening, bricklaying, electrical installation, cabinetmaking, plumbing, floristry and stonemasonry. All the skills represented in the Chelsea garden are also present at the biennial WorldSkills Competition, the world's largest international skills competition for young people.

The team creating the UK Skills garden will comprise of past UK WorldSkills Competitiors as well as upcoming, talented individuals who are looking to secure a place in Team UK for the next WorldSkills Competition, which comes to London from 5th - 8th October 2011.

Preparing to be a Workshop Supervisor by Jade Kidd

A guest post by Jade Kidd, Workshop Supervisor for Beauty Therapy, WorldSkills London 2011

At only nineteen years of age, I competed in the WorldSkills Competition held in Japan in 2007. I represented the United Kingdom in Beauty Therapy. Over time, with the highest level of training, my skills and ability grew. I went on to compete and was placed 4th, achieving a Medallion of Excellence.

After competing, I realised I wanted my involvement within WorldSkills to continue and quickly started to became addicted to WorldSkills! Now, three years later, I am still hugely involved, training future Competitors alongside my ex-Training Manager, Sue Simpson and Assistant Trainer, Jenna Bailey.

I have also recently taken on the role of Workshop Supervisor for the Beauty Therapy competitions for WorldSkills London 2011. I share this role with Jenna Bailey. She too was a past Competitor and our experience and knowledge within Beauty Therapy and WorldSkills makes us the perfect duo for the job! The role includes organising and preparing the stand ready for the competition to take place. We both visited WorldSkills Calgary 2009 to shadow the Workshop Supervisors there and it meant that we were able to have a better understanding of what is expected of a Workshop Supervisor. Long hours, commitment and organisation are just a few of the many things you need to ensure your competition is a success for WorldSkills London 2011. I can't wait!

Being part of the WorldSkills UK Alumni by Richard Talman

Guest post from Richard Talman, Jewellery, WorldSkills Seoul 2001

Late last year I was contacted by UK Skills about being a WorldSkills UK Alumni member and what it meant to me. UK Skills were in the process of working out a plan to re-energise the existing network of past WorldSkills Competitors to form a community of alumni.

They talked me through the plan to re-unite team members and bring all the teams together and I was eager to lend a hand. I have such fond and unrivalled memories of the times I had with Team UK at WorldSkills Seoul in 2001, from the first time we all met through to the WorldSkills Competition and beyond.

I made some fantastic friends all of which helped me out and vice versa, to make it through the tough tasks that the WorldSkills Competition threw at us. I made a promise to myself at the time to stay in contact with as many of them as possible and I regard a handful of them as really close friends. Unfortunately as the years have progressed and with them many of the team changing employers, telephone numbers and addresses, I have lost contact with most of them.

As part of the new WorldSkills UK Alumni plan I have been selected as an Alumni Activist for my team year. I have been asked as an Activist to find as many of my past team mates as possible, so far my search has been successful and continues.

I am very excited about WorldSkills coming to London next year. It will be a fantastic opportunity for London and will hopefully change people's perceptions of skills and vocational education. Hopefully it will also be an opportunity for past WorldSkills Competitors to reunite with their team mates and friends.

Like many people did for me, I will be there showing my support for the Competitors. Good Luck!

The WorldSkills Realisation by Chris Ridgeon

Picture of the WorldSkills Calgary 2009 Opening Ceremony, taken by Chris

My name is Chris Ridgeon and I am the Workshop Supervisor for Web Design at WorldSkills London 2011.

I first became aware of WorldSkills in 2008 when my brother won a gold medal in a WorldSkills UK event. My own involvement in WorldSkills, and specifically WorldSkills London 2011, started when I was asked to train the UK's Web Design Competitor.

However, after visiting WorldSkills Calgary 2009 to shadow my Canadian counterparts, I had a WorldSkills realisation! I knew that the WorldSkills Competitions were big events, but until you actually attend an Opening Ceremony, I don't think anyone can appreciate the scale of such a competition and the amount of people involved. Not only do we have some of the world's most highly skilled young people competing, but we have a whole network of professionals supporting them, and the event, throughout. Attending WorldSkills Calgary 2009 prior to our own event here in the UK not only brings a true realisation of the amount of work involved, but also makes you realise what an incredible experience it is for everyone!

My role at WorldSkills London 2011 is to organise the competition equipment and area where the Web Design competition takes place. For Web Design, this involves set-up of the computer systems, servers, software and other hardware required for the Competitors to work with. I think many would be amazed at the amount of different pieces of software a web designer can use and the many configuration possibilities we must account for. However, this is the same in most skills - it is the use of different tools and techniques that makes each Competitor's work interesting and unique.

At the moment, we are finalising what we call the 'infrastructure list' which sets out what tools will be available for the competition. This then gets published so we can procure the equipment and the Competitors know what they will have to work with.

WorldSkills London 2011 is going to be big and, after attending WorldSkills Calgary 2009, myself and the other Workshop Supervisors are excited and looking forward to making it the best WorldSkills Competition yet!