Member Article

Gestamp Tallent rap wins Apprenticeship contest

A school student put her own spin on a well-known rap to win an Apprenticeship awareness contest.

Jaydene Chappell performed a special version of Will Smith’s Fresh Prince of Bel Air ditty to introduce Gestamp Tallent, a car parts manufacturer which employs 1,300 people on Aycliffe Business Park.

The 13-year-old changed the words to describe Tallent, which has been in Newton Aycliffe for decades, and wow the judges to win first prize.

Six high-profile businesses have spent the last nine weeks taking part in the Apprenticeship Awareness Programme, which is part-funded by the Great Aycliffe and Middridge Partnership (GAMP) and is designed to bring education and business together to educate young people about Apprenticeship opportunities.

Finley Structures, SWDT, A-Tech Fabrications, Ebac, Gestamp Tallent and the Bignall Group all started the programme back in September.

More than 100 year 9 students took part in a carousel of workshops, dubbed “speed networking”, when the companies involved gave the youngsters a short insight into what they do.

The tutor groups were then allocated one firm which they will visit and get to know more about them and Apprenticeships.

After visiting the firms, businesses made several return visits to Woodham to help young people put together a presentation, which were delivered during a special evening this week.

Tallent’s team won it, with the main presentation being made by Jaydene along with Yasmine Hynes, Adam Byrne and Ryan Harris, helped by David Pearson from Tallent.

“We wanted to do something different and I’m not embarrassed about doing things like that at all,” said Jaydene.

And on winning the contest, she added: “The person we had helping us was very understanding and helped us a lot. We understood the type of things that we had to do so we got on well with the task.”

It’s the second year Woodham have taken part in the project, which is well supported by businesses in Aycliffe.

Head teacher Christine Forysth said: “Woodham Academy is a really happy school and smiles are what we do.

“Education is an absolute joy. It should be a pleasure, it should be fun, it should be about enjoyment, and I think everyone saw that for themselves this evening.

“It’s great that children have had the opportunity to go and see businesses first hand and find out what opportunities are out there.

“It’s also been a real pleasure to have local firms working with our young people. I think they’ve learned a lot about what schools do.”

Adam White, from GAMP, added: “We saw six fantastic presentations, each and every one of them covered all the main topics.

“They were a credit to the school, and hopefully they all gained an insight into Apprenticeships in our local area.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Martin Walker .