Students share their experience with others

Students have been recounting some of the highlights of their time at the College, during the first-ever Student Conference. Using the theme Inspire, seven different students gave half-hour presentations on a particular experience during their time at the College which had proved inspirational for them.

The event was open to fellow staff and students at the College, who came along to listen to the presentations and ask questions. Posters showing a range of student experiences across our Further Education and Higher Education courses were exhibited, and they stayed in place for that night's HE prizegiving ceremony.

Kathy Page spoke about her time working with gifted and talented children, David Benson referred to his time on a Voluntary Initiative placement with the Richard Burns Foundation, Elise Butt talked about her time in New York and Katharina Nast gave a presentation on her ERASMUS exchange visit to Melbourne.

Ricky Balshaw discussed his preparations to try and represent Britain in Dressage at the next Paralympics, Karen Holloway gave the talk Why can't my elephant be orange?, which reflected on whether children in schools had enough time to express themselves creatively and Christos Skordis recounted his successful job interview with the Starwood Hotel group.

Lecturer Michelle Callanan, who devised the event, said: “The idea for this came about when I was sitting in with some of the students who'd done our Voluntary Initiative placement. I saw how much they'd gained from that, and how it had changed their perspectives, and I thought there must be other students here who also had stories to tell.

"All of those who took part said it had gone very well, particularly considering the short timescale it was put together in, and hopefully we can continue from here and make it an annual event."