College hosts World Skills Competition

This month, our Abingdon Hair & Beauty department hosted the first heat of the World Skills Competition, welcoming students to the College as they battled it out to be one of the eight competitors in the National Finals.

World Skills is a charity and partnership between employers, education, and governments, which uses international best practice to raise the standards in apprenticeships and technical education. One of the ways the charity achieves this is by hosting national competitions that aim to raise the standards of vocational skills whilst inspiring students to go above and beyond their potential.

This year, there were over 800 entries for the beauty therapy and commercial make-up qualifiers, from which 48 beauty therapy and beauty therapy practitioner students were selected. The chosen students headed to our salons to get started on their brief, creating looks inspired by the brief title ‘Who Was, Who Is, Who Will Be’.

The event was a brilliant opportunity for students across the region to showcase their talent and for our students to gain inspiration from their looks:

Following the event, Nikki Samuels, Curriculum Manager, shared:

“We were incredibly proud to be asked to host a round of beauty therapy and commercial make-up qualifiers for the prestigious World Skills competition. It was most inspiring to watch judges with such strong industry expertise and to see the creativity and professionalism of all the competitors.”

Rona, World Skills' Learner Experience and Enterprise Manager, also shared the following, praising Abingdon & Witney College’s Hair & Beauty Department:

“You truly demonstrated the World Skills spirit in making everyone feel welcome, valued, and you put everyone at ease in the first of our qualifier heats for 2024. Please thank each of your team and colleagues for supporting and running the competitions so smoothly and fairly. All competitors and tutors that we spoke to said that they had had a great experience - so thank you so much for this."

If you would like to find out more about the Beauty Therapy & Makeup Artistry courses offered at Abingdon & Witney College, please click the links below.