SkillFRIDGE: Registration is now open

From March 2, 2020 you can officially register to take part in this year's SkillFRIDGE cycle, a competition that aims to encourage young people into refrigeration careers and to help close the skills gap currently affecting the UK.

SkillFRIDGE aims to highlight the RACHP industry as a career path to young people. Through its competitions it emphasises the benefits of an engineering career, promoting the career choices available as well as providing an exciting platform for apprentices to exhibit their skills. Whilst the main aim is to connect the younger generation with the industry, the upper age limit has been removed from the competition to encourage diversity as well as to allow all apprentice engineers the opportunity to learn best practice as well as develop their skills, benchmarking against industry standards.

How does it work?

There are three main stages, the first step is online registration. This is now open until April 2 and can be done through the WordSkills UK website by going to www.worldskillsuk.org/champions/national-skills-competitions/find-a-competition. The Refrigeration sector can now be found under the competition header ‘Engineering and Technology’.

Training providers, employers and tutors are encouraged to then complete a Passive stage task in order to send through outstanding apprentices and students who are ready to test themselves whilst boosting their skills and experience.

Once the registration closes things progress to the national qualifiers. Competitors will be invited to participate in qualifiers that will be held at colleges and training providers across the UK throughout late spring and summer.

During these regional heats competitors will complete a series of tasks under strict time schedules and their work will be assessed by a panel of specially selected industry experts.

The six highest scoring apprentices, along with the national winner, will be given the chance to compete at the WorldSkills UK National Final, held at WorldSkills UK LIVE at Birmingham’s NEC in November 2020.

On the final day of the competition the gold medal winner from the WorldSkills UK national final will be announced and will be presented with a medal in front of the other apprentices and audience members. They will also receive a trophy and their respective training provider will receive the SkillFRIDGE Shield at the ACR News Awards in 2020.

Subject to age eligibility, those apprentices who achieve a sufficiently high score in the WSUK National Final will also be considered to represent Great Britain at international WorldSkills competitions for Squad UK.

Last year’s gold medallist and national winner, Sydney Copus from Space Engineering, said: “The win has given me a little confidence boost, but the biggest thing about it for me is all the support and messages I’ve got from my lecturers, colleagues and friends.”

02-03-2020