Jonathon beat off the challenge of over 150 other competitors to come third in the preliminary stage of the World Skills competition and progressed to the national qualifiers which were held earlier this month. He will learn in September if he has secured a place in the UK finals in November.
For the first stage of the competition, Jonathan had to design a single page website to meet a given design/client specification. For the national qualifier round, he had to replicate a web site from a given design using industry standard web codes, including HTML5 and CSS3.
Web Authoring lecturer, Aaron Colton said he was delighted but not surprised at Jonathon’s success:
“Jonathon is a hard-working and dedicated student. His recent World Skills achievement came as no surprise to me as he completes every task to a high standard. Since September 2019, I've had the pleasure of watching his skills and confidence grow as he became more disciplined and independent in his studies.”
Aaron added: “Jonathon knows that to become a successful web designer, he needs to push himself beyond what is taught in the classroom. World qualification was even more challenging this year because of the pandemic so the Creative Media are massively proud of all that he has achieved so far. We will be following his journey very closely and wish him every success in the future.”
Chip of the old block
Jonathon’s father, Robert, is Curriculum Area Manager for Creative Industries (Media, Art & Design) at the College in Newtownabbey. Prior to joining the College’s lecturing staff in 2003, Robert worked in Desk Top Publishing, IT support, network administration and training. He spearheaded the development of the successful Interactive Media courses at the College, using his extensive industrial experience to ensure that students are equipped with the right skillset to progress to university or employment in the sector.