Westminster Kingsway College recently welcomed a group of 20 students from Hyejeon College in South Korea. The students, specially selected by Hyejeon College, took part in a 3 week customised training programme designed to improve their Culinary and Patisserie skills.

The programme offered students a unique experience to study in the heart of London, with the added benefit of training in the medium of English.

Students participated in practical skills training with chef lecturer Ian Sutton in Westminster Kingsway College’s renowned training kitchens, utilising the high quality, specialist teaching facilities and real working environment. Students were also given an exclusive opportunity to shadow chefs at some of London’s top restaurants.

These include:

• Jinjuu, a modern Korean restaurant led by TV celebrity chef Judy Joo
• Galvin at Windows, Michelin starred restaurant at the Hilton Park Lane
•  Lucky Cat, Gordon Ramsay’s new Asian eating house

Students also completed job shadowing at the Fitzrovia branch of Bao, a trendy Taiwanese restaurant as well as the restaurant based in Allbright, a women’s only members club where the kitchen is led by executive chef Sabrina Gidda who has repeatedly appeared on the TV show The Great British Menu.  

The programme concluded on the 23 July with a certificate ceremony celebrating the achievements of the programme.

Students were presented with fantastic opportunities to engage with industry through workplace shadowing and guided visits around London’s most iconic food markets. The Westking International team hosted a London orientation walking tour for the group, passing some of London’s most iconic landmarks such as Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and Piccadilly Circus. 

Students also participated in a visit to the Sky Garden; London’s highest public garden offering 360 degree uninterrupted views across the City of London. 

Feedback of the Culinary and Patisserie classes was excellent, with 100% of students rating the facilities available at our Victoria centre as top-quality and all students stated they would recommend this programme to a peer.

Student comments included:

• “The job shadowing allowed me to make many new dishes – it was such a great experience.”
• “I really enjoyed the British culture.”
• “The different teaching methods are great in the UK. I like that the teachers are so open minded.”

This is the second time the hospitality training programme has been delivered for students of Hyejeon College and Westminster Kingsway College look forward to continuing their strong partnership.

These students travelled all the way to London from South Korea because of Westminster Kingsway College’s reputation and history in the world of hospitality and culinary arts. Every year dozens of our students leave WestKing to start jobs in the finest hotels, restaurants and kitchens. You could follow in their footsteps and train here too – to find out more, visit here.

As students start enrolling at the College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London for the new academic year, we’re taking a look back in time to the early 1960s, when the Beatles had their first #1 hit, London’s Centre Point was still a set of architect’s plans and Harold Macmillan was Prime Minister.

Andy Thomas, Richard Tresise and Ian Carpenter were teenagers in 1963 and studied for their GCEs at the what-was-then-called Tottenham Technical College. They recently returned to our Tottenham Centre for the first time since they left, to reminisce on the past and see how the college has changed in the last 56 years.

There is a long tradition of technical education in the Tottenham and wider Haringey areas. Since its founding in 1897, the college has offered a wide range of relevant and practical courses, including Physiology and Hygiene, Science, Technology, Building Construction, Plumbing, Carpentry and Land Surveying. With the success of such ‘multi-skill’ training, the college expanded to accommodate a large increase in admissions, to well over 100,000 students by the 1950s.

CONEL maintains this tradition of providing technical and skills education to the local area. One significant growth area is construction and its related trades – as the UK prepares to leave the EU, we anticipate an explosion in demand for construction skills, as many older UK-born construction workers retire and those from EU countries decide to return home. Today the college operates one of only seven Mayor’s Construction Academy Hubs, and currently has over 150 Apprentices in various construction specialities such as brickwork, carpentry and joinery, construction, electrical instillation and plumbing.

During their visit to the college, Andy, Richard and Ian met Interim Principal, Kurt Hintz and Director, Marcia Summers, and had a tour of CONEL’s modern facilities. Reminiscing on the old days, Andy said: “The college gave us skills that helped us with our careers as well as at home. Doing the multi-skills course meant I could do the painting and decorating, build a wall and do general DIY around the house.”

Their time at the college set them up for their lives, with Andy and Richard both going on to work in insurance and Ian in trade. And Ian discovered that his relationship with the college extends even further, when he found out that his granddad had been the caretaker over 100 years ago.

To this day, CONEL provides its students with more than just a qualification: we understand the importance of transferrable skills such as good communication, team work and leadership when in work, especially as research suggests that millennials entering the job market will have an average of 10-12 jobs in their life and will therefore have to be more flexible than ever to adapt to changes in the job market.

This was backed up recently by our progression and destinations report, which showed that of the 7,045 CONEL learners, 96% progressed to a ‘positive destination’, meaning they either sustained employment and/or entered further learning. This is a 7% increase based on the 16/17 academic year.