Most recently CISCO have recognised national award-winning Advanced Practitioner Judith Larsen for her years of top quality teaching. Judith was the first woman to be recognised by CISCO for her work. She has since won a Times Educational Supplement (TES) national award as Teacher of the Year – beating everyone in the UK to the prestigious title.
The CISCO testimonial read:
Congratulations on completing 10 years of active participation and service in Cisco Networking Academy. We would like to thank you for your dedication and contributions that help make Cisco Networking Academy the premier education program for empowering students to become a bridge to the possible.
She is part of a great team led by Paula Hobday. The whole squad have been entered for a BTEC Team of the Year award for their work in supporting World Skills training.
Ground work for World Skills begins with initial regional competitions that were held at Bedford College. Competitors from across the area use the fantastic facilities at the College to take part in the first round of events. The finals are held at a huge event in the Midlands and then those who win places in the World Skills finals come to Bedford College to practice – again using those world class computing suites.
Paula Hobday, Head of Computing at Bedford College commented: “Our Cisco lab has been used to train UK finalists for the World Skills world finals. World Skills organisers have praised it as ‘one of the best’ in the UK.”
Bedford College students have been successful winning through to the UK finals and in one case the winner was offered a place in the World Skills event.
Paula added: “We regularly enter students into a wide range of digital competitions – it is great practice for them to work under pressure and see what other talent is out there. One great example was the VEX robotics competition sponsored by Lockheed Martin, the international organisation, who then offered an apprenticeship to one of the students. Others regularly go on to their first choice employer simply because of having been trained by our team.”
