Talented Glengormley student Matthew has designs on winning

Matthew McLaughlin (17), who is studying Interactive Media at Northern Regional College’s Newtownabbey campus, is one of seven students from the College to qualify.

Having excelled at the College and regional qualifying competitions, they get to pit their wits against the cream of skilled young people from all over the UK at the national finals.

The finals, which will be attended by an estimated 70,000 people, will be held over four days this November at the NEC, Birmingham.

Congratulating Matthew on reaching the final, Laura Dixon, who lectures in Interactive Media at the College’s Newtownabbey campus, said it was a fantastic achievement.

“Matthew completed the Level Two Diploma in Interactive Media last year and has now progressed to Level Three. He was one of four Interactive Media students from our College to qualify for the regional heat in Manchester. With minimum preparation time, they all did remarkably well to complete a difficult graphic design challenge, which included developing both images and text for a suicide awareness project within the allocated four hours.”

Matthew was placed in the top eight and another student, Thomas Hamill from Carrickfergus is first reserve should any of the finalists not be able to compete.

This has been a busy year for Matthew and Thomas. They were both selected to represent the College on an Erasmus trip to Valencia in Spain. While there, they worked on a joint project with Business Studies students from Northern Regional College, as well as students from Spain, Portugal and Finland to come up with a design concept and promotional materials for a business start-up.

“They are fantastic ambassadors for the College and always give their best to anything they do,” added Laura.

WorldSkills UK competitions are run in partnership with organisations from industry and education to bring together apprentices and students from across the country to compete to be the best in their chosen skills. The competitions, aimed at encouraging students to develop their skills, are designed by industry experts to assess an individual’s knowledge, practical skills and employability attributes against a set of strict criteria.

NRC will be well represented at the WorldSkills finals in Birmingham. In addition to Matthew, six other students from the College’s Ballymena and Coleraine campuses have qualified for the final stage in Carpentry, CNC Milling, IT Software and Mechatronics