For those of you that haven’t heard us harp on about WorldSkills for the last five years – WorldSkills is a vocational skills competition that is taking the world by storm. It’s massive …. The award ceremony in 2011 filled the O2 Arena …. The ‘Skills Show’ in 2015 filled the NEC. Think skills competition on an Olympic scale – builders, plumbers, hairdressers, mechanics, aviation engineers, chefs … we train the web development competitors and this year … all our hopes are on Alfie!
Competition is fierce with each country taking its own approach to attracting top talent, funding and training. This year the competition is taking place in Abu Dhabi, where 1,300 competitors from 60 countries will compete in 51 skills competitions. There will be 10,000 international visitors and 100,000 visitors from Abu Dhabi … phew, no pressure Alfie!
Having been involved in the marking of test papers, we know that the difference between first and fourth could be just a few points, even percentages of a point. Winning would obviously be amazing – a medal of any colour would be a huge achievement for any of the UK competitors. But, Medallions of Excellence are won on merit – awarded to any competitor who demonstrates that their work is of an exceptional standard. As with everything, we always think success should be gauged on merit ….
Good luck to all of the UK’s competitors (especially Alfie of course)! We hope you bring home bags full of Medallions!