Talented Web Designers Advance to WorldSkills UK Competition

The winners of a web design challenge at City College Norwich have been announced and five students from the College’s Business and Computing School will now be entered into the prestigious WorldSkills UK competition.

Working to a tight brief, the students had to apply all of their web design knowledge and skills to put together an accessible and engaging entertainment web site that would appeal to young people.  The students had to put in hours of work in their own time in perfecting and testing their designs, to achieve a result that was user-friendly, fully compatible with different browsers, visually attractive and which met accessibility standards in terms of the layout, colours and fonts used.     

The overall competition winner was Suzanne Fairhurst, 20, who is taking an IT Practitioners National Diploma (Level 3).  Second prize went to Marcus Craske, 16, who is studying on the Advanced Diploma in IT, and third prize was awarded to Kieran Donohoe, 18, another student on the IT Practitioners National Diploma course.  Adam Harrowven, 18, and Luke Alderton, 16, were highly commended runners up.  All five students will now do further work on their web sites, before these are entered into the national WorldSkills UK competition next month.  

Competition winner, Suzanne Fairhurst, from Norwich, said: “I was shocked and overwhelmed to find out I had won the competition because the standard was so high.  I have a strong competitive steak and was determined to do as well as I could.  One thing that really helped me was the experience I gained whilst doing work experience at Blue Hat Technologies, as I learnt so much while I was there.”     

Although prizes were awarded by the College for the top entries, the major benefit for the students has been in the experience gained of putting into practice their skills in the context of a skills competition.  The five students were recently given the opportunity to further hone their skills by spending a day with City College Norwich’s New Media Department, who designed the College’s cutting edge web site and are at the forefront of the latest developments in areas such as social media and virtual learning environments.

Dick Palmer, Principal, City College Norwich said: “Vocational skills competitions such as this are a great way for students to put into practice the skills they have learned through their studies.  By introducing a competitive element we are able to give students an added incentive to take their skills to the next level, and hopefully have a bit of fun in the process.  The serious side to this is that it provides another way for the College to promote excellence in skills and for the students to strive to do the very best they can.”   

Jamie Beaumont, Lecturer in the School of Business and Computing, said: “The standard of competition was very high as the students worked really hard to apply the skills they’ve been learning on their courses.  Taking this to the next level and entering the WorldSkills UK competition in Web Design will be a fantastic experience for all of the students.  It is a great thing for the students to be able to say they have been a part of and to put on to their CVs”.  

Run annually, WorldSkills UK skills competitions aim to encourage people across the UK to excel in their vocational skill.  The Web Design competition has been designed to reflect the work role of a web designer and the standards that are expected within the industry. This competition gives competitors an opportunity to work to a brief and work to a deadline, with competitors having to submit their completed website project by the end of April.  The highest scoring competitors that meet the required standard will be invited to compete at the UK final at Middleton Hall, Milton Keynes in July.  

The most successful competitors may now even be considered for selection to the shortlist for Squad and Team UK with the possibility of representing the nation at the world’s biggest international skills competition, WorldSkills, which is being held at ExCel London, from 5th-8th October 2011.

The biennial WorldSkills international competition is the largest vocational skills event in the world, where young people from 51 countries meet and compete in over 40 different skills, ranging from cabinet making to web design. The ultimate prizes are gold, silver and bronze medals.