Westminster reception for Coleg Cambria WorldSkills team

Coleg Cambria students and apprentices who form part of WorldSkills UK’s Long Squad were recently invited to a special reception in Parliament this week to celebrate Team UK’s success at the Skills Olympics in Abu Dhabi.

Sponsored by Baroness Garden, the reception took place at the Strangers’ Dining Room, House of Commons.

The Anne Milton MP, apprenticeships and skills minister joined the WorldSkills reception and spoke of her incredible pride of watching them compete on the global stage.

Reception attendees heard from Peter Bakare (Olympian athlete and Performance Coach for WorldSkills) and Robert Halfon MP (Chair, Education Select Committee). The Coleg Cambria students also had the chance to meet two of MPs Ian Lucas and Mark Tami.

Team UK are the young men and women who represent our nation in global skills competitions, representing the very best apprentices in skills as varied as games design, mechanical engineering, aircraft maintenance and plumbing. At the Skills Olympics in Abu Dhabi last October, Team UK achieved a top 10 finish, achieving the world-class standard in a raft of skills and finishing ahead of Germany.

This September, a new Team UK will be competing at Europe’s biggest skills competition, EuroSkills, which is this year being hosted by Budapest.

At the reception attendees heard from members of both teams about their respective skills journeys and the learnings they are bringing back into the system to encourage the next generation of apprentices to follow in their footsteps.

Coleg Cambria currently have 11 students and apprentices in the Long Squad – each currently training hard to reach Team UK and represent our nation in Kazan, Russia in 2019