City & Guilds Awards Ceremony
Tuesday 11 July 2017
City & Guilds Needlemakers' Prize Winner receives his award at St James' Palace
The Master and Assistant Michael Lee attended the City and Guilds Awards Ceremony at St James' Palace where Victor Walsh was presented with the Needlemakers' Prize.
Victor works as a lecturer at Coleg Cambria and his knowledge and passion for fabrication and welding is always clear during his lessons and at any "one-to-one" support sessions he gives. He always shares his experience in the classroom, explaining how he did things when he worked as a fabricator.
He has extremely high standards for his students. Victor wants everyone to pass their qualifications, then it’s all about how far they are prepared to push themselves. He doesn’t like “its good enough” or “its difficult”, often saying if it was easy everyone would be doing it.
Victor is not afraid to say if he doesn’t know something and enjoys learning from his students. His “text book” knowledge of the subject is broad and deep. When teaching subjects that the class feel aren’t relevant, he will always relate it to a situation where it could help them save time or work more efficiently.
Victor also teaches maths lessons to his learners. There have been occasions where they will say they hate maths or they could never do it in school but within 30 minutes he has the whole group understanding Pythagoras.
Victor is lead judge at the UK Skills Sheet Metalwork competition. He always encourages his students to test their skills against others. His encouragement and support has helped his students to improve their skills and win medals at competitions including the Skills Show.
Victor sees competitions as an opportunity for learners to develop their practical and personal skills, to help them cope with the pressures of working life.
Victor’s nominator said “There are so many things…. we have done over the years that seem to be extra compared to other students I have talked to from different areas” He helps keep his students one step above the others by encouraging them to start blogs and develop web pages if they are applying for jobs. He also took a group of 15 people to Germany on a work experience trip.
Victor’s judge added “Your learners are privileged to benefit from your support, knowledge and skills and you should be proud that they speak so highly of you”.