The new building in Tonbridge - come and see for yourself!

The new building at Brook Street opened last month and here’s a selection of photographs taken by National Diploma Photography students to give you a flavour of what it’s like inside and out.

Their tutor, Nigel Carr, said: “The students had been set a project titled 'Structures, Constructions and Deconstructions' and I thought the new building was an ideal opportunity, for those that were interested, to research innovative photographers work and explore photographing architecture… Only this morning I found two of the students taking self motivated photographs of the building.”

The photos were taken by Dan Wheeler, Andy Robertson, Kieren Plowright, Carrie Coupland and Ele Parkman-Mayne.

The large, modern college building already feels like home and we’ve had fantastic feedback from students, staff and visitors. Inside we are using the latest technology to support students in bright and airy classrooms with numerous open learning and breakout areas. We also provide opportunities for people outside of the College to use our facilities with a 500-seat art centre, a restaurant which is being run by Whiting & Hammond, hair and beauty studios, Costa coffee and Optimise gym.

If you’d like to take a look around the new building, whether you want to study here or use it for business, then we have an Open Day on 3^rd July from 10am-4pm. Alongside this we have a number of exhibitions including the excellent Art and Media Show and Enterprise Factor (look out for the windmill and robots). Everyone is welcome. You can read more about the Open Day here. We are running simultaneous Open Days at all our campuses – North Farm at Tunbridge Wells is also open from 10am-4pm where the Motor Vehicle and Construction Crafts courses will be on display. Ashford, Folkestone and Dover will be open from 10am-1pm.

For more details about the Photography courses available at West Kent College then read here.

The final building work at the College will be finished by September 2011 - exciting times ahead!

Art and Media Show

The Art and Media Show takes place in Tonbridge from Wednesday 30^th June until the Open Day on Saturday 3^rd July. The show is part of the annual end of year celebration and there will be displays of Photography, Fine Art, Fashion, Graphics, Animation and Media work. The show will take place in Speldhurst, Ashurst and the new building - ask at reception for details of what's going on where. It’s open from 10am-4pm daily and everyone is welcome.

See you there!

For more information about our Art and Design courses then see here. For anyone interested in joining the College on one of these course, this is the ideal chance to see what sort of things you could be doing as part of your course.

New College Course Comes to the Aid of Local Parents

The College enjoyed great success on Saturday at the launch of a new First Aid Course designed for parents.

The two-hour course, which was delivered at the College’s brand new campus in Tonbridge, provided parents with the confidence to act positively in an emergency situation. Among the topics covered were principles of first aid, rescue breathing and chest compression, choking, and the recovery position.

The course was enjoyed by all of those who attended with one Mother saying: “All parents should attend this course – it could save a child’s life”.

Course tutor, Yvonne Hughes, said, “I’m so pleased at the success of this course, it’s a great way for parents to learn how to react in an emergency. I hope that plenty more parents take up the opportunity to undertake this training.”

The course will be running on the following dates over the summer:

Wednesday 4th August 6pm – 8pm

Saturday 7th August 10am – 12pm

For more details or to book a place contact the Business Development Department on 08000 858554 or email busdev@wkc.ac.uk.
Look here for more First Aid courses.

Broken Beauty

'Broken Beauty', the special effects show, took place on Wednesday 9^th June at the Brook Street campus. It featured a show of cuts, burns, bruising and fashion make-up, as well as horror movie style make-up – definitely not for the faint hearted!

Visitors not only watched live demonstrations of special effects make-up, they experienced it too. College staff plus existing and prospective students chose to be made ‘beautiful’ or ‘gruesome’ by the highly skilled special effects make-up artists from the Intermediate Beauty course, and were also treated to manicures by the Level 1 beauty students. 

In addition to studying make-up, this group of students have been studying customer service and event planning, and used their new skills to plan the entire event themselves. They certainly took their customer service approach to new levels; the students even baked their own cupcakes to give their event visitors. All students involved worked really hard, on what proved to be a ‘truly special’ special effects event!

The students would also like to say a big thank you to Will Hutchinson, who helped to produce their poster, and to Vanessa Sumner and Tina Chatfield-Keller, photography students, who took photos at the event.

Ann-Marie Fisher

Visiting Lecturer

Here are the Beauty courses available at West Kent College.