Credits

EDUCATION
Gateshead College
HARD WORK WINS OUT FOR
INSPIRATIONAL WOMEN
From setting up businesses to forging careers in engineering, young women are being supported
by Gateshead College to secure their dream jobs
i
GATESHEAD COLLEGE
www.gateshead.ac.uk
@gatesheadcoll
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Young women at Gateshead College
are proving that career success is all
about hard work and a commitment
to achieving job aspirations.
Twenty-year-old beauty blogger
Katie Meehan recently turned her hobby and
online skills into a digital start-up after gaining
valuable insight and support on a business course
run by the college.
Katie set up a blog - http://katiemeehan.co.uk/
- which celebrated one million hits in 2014 and
focuses on beauty and make up as well as her love
of photography.
She now plans to apply the expert skills and
knowledge that have made her own blog a
resounding success to support small and medium
businesses in establishing and running their own
social media channels.
Elsewhere, ambitious teenager Chloe Kingsland
is pursuing her childhood dream to become
an engineer. Having graduated from the Ford
Engineering Academy in top place, Chloe
became a young apprentice at Ford Engineering,
spending four days a week at Ford Aerospace
in South Shields and one at Gateshead College’s
Skills Academy for Automotive, Engineering,
Manufacturing and Logistics at Team Valley.
Chloe is excelling in her role and plays a key
part in Ford presentations to schools, encouraging
young people into manufacturing and engineering.
She says: “Being female has made no difference
to me getting into this profession. There’s nothing
that girls can’t do just as well as men and I hope
that my experience will inspire more women to
take up careers in the industry.”
Last year, two Gateshead College apprentices
also became the first women in more than two
decades to join the Nexus Apprenticeship Scheme.
Morgan Saville and Sam Davenport were among
ten new recruits to join the programme, which
is designed and delivered in partnership with the
college and offers an ideal opportunity to start a
career in rail engineering.
It was the first time that Nexus had taken on
women in trainee engineering roles since the early
1990s.
Morgan, from East Boldon, and Sam, from
Sunderland, have now successfully completed
their first year which has been spent training at
Gateshead College and the Nexus rail engineering
base at South Gosforth in Newcastle.
Judith Doyle, principal and chief executive at
Gateshead College, comments: “My advice to
young people when choosing their career is not
to be put off by outdated perceptions that gender
stereotype professions – it’s about positive attitude
and being the right person for the job.
“It’s important that we have good role models
in business so that more women are encouraged
to be aspirational in their careers and have the
confidence to apply for jobs that challenge them.
I hope that I can inspire in my role, where I
am succeeding as the first female principal of
Gateshead College having worked my way up
through the ranks. I like to celebrate that men and
women are different, that they bring different skills
and that this enriches the culture and success of
any workplace.”
Judith has led the college to become Ofstedrated
Outstanding and number one in the region
for its success rates. She was also recently named
FE Leader of the Year at the Times Education
Supplement’s FE Awards. The awards celebrate
those who have had an outstanding influence on
post-16 education in the UK.