This year our Middlesbrough Campus launched it’s first Skills Builder week, an exclusive week-long array of activities for college-level students that aim to support their professional development and well-being. The busy schedule of events focused on range of activities including basic DIY, budgeting & financing, focusing on wellbeing, preparing for university, CV writing, self-defence, yoga and more. The purpose of this week is to enable all students to try new activities, meet new friends, develop skills for life beyond studying and have fun.

Vice Principal of Further Education Rob Kane said “after listening to student feedback in recent times we took an ambitious step to plan and deliver our very first ‘Skills Builder week’. The aim of the week was to provide additional opportunities for students to try new activities and learn skills for life beyond that of their creative study programmes. After asking our students what areas of interest they would like to explore we received a wide range of responses from ‘preparing for living away from home’ through to trying new hobbies such as Yoga.”

“A dedicated team of support staff helped to devise and facilitate well over 20 different workshops which students had free range to elect and attend. Utilising wider skillsets from expert staff from departments such as Marketing, Student Services, our data admin team and others, the students took the opportunity to meet new staff and mix with students from other subjects.”

“Effectively it was a conference with multiple activities designed to introduce students to others, whilst learning new skills and having fun. Our students were excellent in attending and taking advantage of putting themselves out of the comfort zones to sign up to activities with new people. The feedback has been heart warming in hearing how much they have enjoyed the opportunity and the new friendships made along the way.”

UAL Illustration & Animation student Max Woodall said, “my experience with Skills Builder week was very insightful and it expanded my knowledge towards a higher professional standard with work.”

Anonymous student feedback for the week was positive with many students commenting that the opportunity to socialise with new people and learning skills outside their every day sessions was the highlight of the week. One student fed-back “it was a nice change of pace to go off timetable and try some things that we wouldn’t normally do in a lesson.” UAL Acting for Stage & Screen student Rubie Riach agreed commenting, “I really enjoyed skills builder week as I was able to sample different skills that I may not have thought about before.”

UAL Film and TV Production student Jacob said “I found Skills Builder to be an interesting opportunity, and something new that is not seen in any other colleges, and it was nice to be able to try out things that you wouldn’t normally be able to cover in course sessions, and it was great to have the ability to go deeper into specific industry skills such as Marketing & Social Media working on individual social media strategies all the way to Personal Statement Writing and Team Building Exercises. I feel like I gained a lot of knowledge from the sessions I attended and I found it to be a valuable resource to me as a creative.”

If you are interested in studying a creative subject after school we offer a number of pathways that span the art, design, screen & stage industries including A-Levels, T-Levels, UAL Diplomas, Foundation and Access to HE, find out more here. You can also visit campus on one of our open days to find out more about our courses, tour our studios and speak to staff and students. Book your space today!