Construction competition builds on students’ professional standards
Coleg Sir Gâr hosted a Skills Competition Wales event which last year saw two students’ progress to win gold in the categories of joinery and carpentry at a UK-wide final.
Students from The College Merthyr Tydfil, Gower College Swansea and NPTC travelled to the college’s Ammanford campus to compete at the campus’s purpose-built construction facilities.
Competing on their home ground were seven Coleg Sir Gâr students and eight Coleg Ceredigion students in a range of skills including bricklaying, plastering, joinery, carpentry and electrical with painting and decorating competing at a later date.
Last year, Coleg Ceredigion students Osian James (carpentry) and Steffan Thomas (joinery) competed at the same competition and then progressed to win gold medals in the SkillBuild national UK final.
At the competition, students are given materials and a technical brief to work to within a given timeframe and construct a finished product relating to various arms of the construction industry and are judged by industry professionals.
This was an opportunity to showcase complex skills from a range of trade areas which included brickwork, carpentry, joinery, electrical, plumbing and plastering.
LBS supplied the bricks, and kindly donated company merchandise and t-shirts to for the bricklaying category of the competition.
Skills Competition Wales aims to raise the profile of skills in Wales and offers students, trainees and apprentices in Wales a chance to challenge, benchmark and raise their skills by taking part in competitions across a range of sectors.
Wayne Savory, assistant director and head of construction at Coleg Sir Gâr said: “We were thrilled to invite students and apprentices from across the region to develop and test their skills through Skills Competition Wales.
“The work has been judged by industry professionals and we will later receive the results where winners will be celebrated in a Wales-wide satellite awards evening.
“It was also encouraging to see more female competitors taking part and training to work in the construction industry.”
Skills Competitions Wales is supported by the Welsh Government funded Inspiring Skills in Wales project which supports all Welsh competitors to take part in competitions and to help them progress their competition journey to national, UK and international standards.
