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Students have been rewarded with jobs after travelling miles to complete a paintshop course undertaken in the motor vehicle section at the Isle campus of the College of West Anglia. More than half have found employment after completing the course, which is not offered by colleges for miles around. As well as those living locally, students have travelled from Peterborough, Haverhill and other places. In the last year one student earned two coveted national awards. Recently lecturer Bob Whalley, who is also course director and a staff governor, arranged a photo call to show those in the Class of 2013 who found work in a short space of time since their courses ended. Bob said: “Over the last few years we have had great success in getting students into the industry, firstly by making the course as realistic as possible, with regards to real work on real cars and then as the student progresses getting them faster nearer industry repair times and showing them as diverse amount of knowledge as possible but secondly and most importantly liaising with firms getting to know their needs. “This year it has resulted in some 54 per cent of the finishing students getting jobs in the industry.” The students got jobs in automotive paint and bodywork as a result of doing the Level 2 and 3 paint and bodywork at the college. Tom Reeve, from Walpole Highway works at Kirk Coachworks in Wisbech; Mark Satchwell, from Peterborough works at Autotransform in the city; Ryan Youngs, from March, works at Halfords mixing paint and working in the store in the town; Callum Johnson, the award winner, and Gareth Holmes both work at Lovells in Peterborough;  and Josh Sloan, from Guyhirn, works at Andy’s bodyshop in Wisbech. The former students were grateful for the support they had received at the Isle campus of the College of West Anglia. Callum said: Bob Whalley my tutor helped me achieve the full- time job from making us work in a real life body shop environment and learn the attitude and attendance of working, this prepared me for a job. “I was ready to take on full time employment and have achieved this at Lovell's.” Gareth wrote: “The course has helped me a lot to get a job in the industry because we have been working on real customer cars from Day 1 and I have a tutor that pushed me and helped me and would show me all different ways of working with the paint and different ways to sort the prep work so when i got the job I already had a good knowledge.” understanding of the work and the levels of quality i needed to be at.” Paintshop students at Isle PICTURE Left is Callum Johnson, Mark Satchwell centre, front Ryan Youngs, rear Tom Reeve and far right Gareth Holmes

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