Somerset College

Andrew Pengelly, Lecturer in Carpentry and Joinery at Somerset College will be the WorldSkills Shop Master for Bench Joinery (trade 25) at the World Skills Competition to be held in Excel London in October 2011.  This is a huge accolade for both Andrew and the College.

Andrew went to this year’s WorldSkills Final in Calgary, Canada in September as a Technical Observer, with the rest of the UK team.

During this cycle of World Skills, the UK competitor (Trevor Woods, Northern Ireland) for Bench Joinery came home with a Bronze medal.

WorldSkills is an international not-for-profit membership organisation comprising of 51 member countries/regions dedicated to raising the status and standards of vocational education and training worldwide. Its flagship programme is the biennial WorldSkills Competition.

The WorldSkills Competition takes place in a different country every two years and brings together over 1000 young people from across the globe to compete in skills ranging from welding to web design.

Prior to this event, SkillBuild is the UK competition for the Construction Industry and is the largest multi-trade competition in the country, of which winners are selected to possibly compete at World Skills

Somerset College has been hosting the South West Regional heats for the past nine years and is set to hold the 2010 heat once again.

Barbara Bennett, Head of the Division of Construction said:‘ We are so proud of Andrew.  He and the College have been involved with SkillBuild for many years on both a regional and national level, and it is really exciting to be involved with the international finals in 2011.  Andrew has a great reputation and immense expertise in his field and this is why he has been chosen.’

 As World Skills Shop Master, Andrew will manage a number of elements relating to the competition including, infrastructure, sponsorship and acquisitions managing facilities and resources before, during and after the competition, managing the experts/ judges and health and safety.

 Andrew said: ’ I have been involved in competitions for a number of years and the highlight of my teaching was coaching Ben Ingersent to World Skills 2007.  Being nominated to be Shop Master now gives me the opportunity to see first hand how the rest of the world competes in the UK and be a part of these young people’s success at the very highest skill level in Bench Joinery. I feel very privileged to be selected by World Skills for this role.’