For the first time, RUBI UK & Ireland sponsors the WorldSkills UK program, as one of its main sponsors, beside to Schluter Systems and Johnson Tiles. WorldSkills creates medal winning, world-class champions from all backgrounds, to inspire others to follow in their footsteps. But what is the program about and its competitions? What do they teach the participants? And how RUBI helps them in this process?
What is WorldSkills UK?
WorldSkills UK is a partnership between businesses, education and Government that accelerates young people’s careers giving them the best start in work and life.
Assessing apprentices’ and students’ practical skills, knowledge and employability attributes in competitive timed conditions, WorldSkills UK Competitions are proven to help young people go further and faster in their training and careers.
Competitions are designed by industry experts and focus on the highest UK and international standards.
The Competition activity and the UK’s participation in international competitions is supported by the UK Government, Governments in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales and partners in industry and education, such as RUBI, Schluter Systems and Johnson Tiles.
Selection process
There are regional competitions held in different colleges across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Some of them are City of Glasgow, Leeds College of Building, Coleg Sir Gâr , Brimingham City, St Helens Liverpool.
There are different sections within the 4 main areas: Engineering and Technology; Digital, Business and Creative; Health, Hospitality and Lifestyle and Construction and Infrastructure.
Worldskills UK and the training experts develop a training programme based upon requirements for the skill area. Then, the training manager trains all the competitors.
Young apprentices are qualified with marks ranked 1-8 regardless of where they are from and then they are invited to the national finals, held in Birmingham each year at the National finals and SkillsShow. Within all the finalists, they choose at least 4 trainees that compete on the WorldSkills selection.
Those are invited to attend phase 3 of the selection process with the training expert for the skill.
In the Wall and Floor Tiling, there are 3 competitors left, one from City of Glasgow and two from Southern Regional College.
Currently, those selected competitors are in phase 4, also known as Squad UK, and have to train for a longer period of time at the college of their training expert and in different colleges across the UK.
International Training
In order for the UK competitors to get ready for international competition they must also engage in bench marking with other countries. Currently they have developed strong links with Denmark and work in collaboration with them to develop UK competitors. They attend pressure training camps in a vocational school in Herning, Denmark, each year, and they have also been invited to Russia where the WorldSkills finals take place, for further training alongside the Russian training expert for Wall and floor tiling.
Final Competitions
The UK competitors are preparing for selection to represent the UK at EuroSkills, being held in Budapest, Hungary, in September 2018 and also for the WorldSkills finals 2019, being held in Kazan, Russia. However, the competitor selected for EuroSkills doesn’t have to be the same competitor that will compete at WorldSkills.
RUBI Sponsorhip
RUBI UK & Ireland, and the other companies who sponsor WorldSkills UK, give an amount, previously agreed between them, that will cover the training program, based upon requirements for the skill area. So, the funding is used specifically for: training materials, travel to and from training, subsistence. It is used to cover training expenses only as WorldSkills UK cover costs to competitions to training bootcamps In Loughborough University, Training boot camps cover non-technical training and include: time management, team building, problem solving, coping with pressure media training, one to one training with phycologists, mindset.
This prepares competitors for the strains of international competition.
Stay tuned for the follow-up of the WorldSkillsUk competition!
From RUBI UK & Ireland we wish the best luck to the UK competitors!
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