The College of West Anglia has held a celebration event to wish five of its students the best of luck as next month they will be competing at the National finals of WorldSkills 2014, at the Birmingham NEC. The ‘Going for Gold’ event, held at the college’s own Vancouver Restaurant was to recognise the achievement of five young people who have worked hard and won through regional rounds over the past 12 months to secure places in the national final. WorldSkills International, as the name suggests, is an international skills competition which involves 70 countries in the pursuit of excellence in vocational training across 46 different competition categories. WorldSkills International is acknowledged as the ‘skills Olympics’ of vocational training. As such it serves to recognise and to celebrate individual ability and outstanding achievement by young people. The competition began in 1950 when Spain hosted the 1st International event in Madrid – since then 18 countries have hosted what has become a bi-annual event which attracted over 1,000 competitors from 67 countries to the 42nd WorldSkills International 2013 competition at Leipzig in Germany. Five CWA students are competing in four skills categories in the National Finals 2014,they are: -Robert Carter, 22 from Downham Market in the advanced Plumbing competition -James Simpson 19 from Chatteris in the advanced Welding competition -Sophie Girton 18 from King’s Lynn in the intermediate Hairdressing competition -Michelle Brett who is also a hairdressing lecturer based at the Isle campus in Wisbech and Rebecca Youngs 19 from Thetford in the advanced Media - Makeup competition The students, their friends and family and CWA staff who will be supporting the competing students at the NEC attended the evening to wish the students well in their pursuit of a medal. College of West Anglia Principal, David Pomfret said addressing the students, staff and gathered guests: “I am convinced of the value of skills competitions in general and I am incredibly proud of the growing presence of the college in the WorldSkills International competition in particular. “Whatever the outcome in Birmingham, as a finalist in the WorldSkills 2014 National Competition these young people have shown themselves to be committed and capable employees, with a personal confidence and capability which is well above average - which no doubt will serve them well in their future careers.” The national finals take place in Birmingham on 13-15 November 2014.