Students turn plastic into something fantastic

Plastic shopping bags are recognised worldwide as an environmental hazard, but fashion students at Waltham Forest College have found a fascinating way to recycle them.

They have turned the throwaway items into fantastic dresses and gowns in a design project based on recyclable materials.

The bags were ironed, steamed, knitted, stapled, pinned, sewn and crunched into shape to make a collection of stunning creations, some outrageous and others the brave might dare to wear.

“I laughed when we were given this project,” student Sahra Moalim said. “I first thought, making dresses out of plastic bags, no way. But I was wrong.

“I learned that you can make anything glamorous and different. It works if you try hard to think of the design and forget about the material you are working with.”

Sahra, 20, is in her second year of a two year course leading to a BTEC National Diploma in fashion, a qualification equivalent to three A Levels, and plans to study design at university.

Her team used a variety of techniques, including adding sequins, to create a yellow and black gown from Morrisons bags.

Fashion tutor Melanie Boraster said students were split into teams of three, each consisting of a first year, a second year, and a fashion pathway student, to produce a garment.

“We visited the Fashion and Textile Museum and the Tate Modern to get ideas and inspiration for their designs,” she said.

Annie Sophocleous, 18, said: “I was inspired by the exhibition of corsets at the Fashion and Textiles Museum. I chose to knit a waist band with Morrisons plastic bags to get a tight waist effect with a puffy, girly-look skirt.”

Grace Crathern, 17, said it was her uncle who is a window dresser in Paris who inspired her to choose a career in fashion. She said: “My group really loved the bright yellow colour of the Budgens plastic bags. It was seeing a picture of a bra in a museum's leaflet that gave me the idea for the design of this dress.”

Mature student Femida Mahmood said her team’s design made from Waitrose bags was inspired by a 19th century “umbrella dress” seen at the fashion museum. The 53-year-old said: “I have five children aged between 10 and 19 and have a workshop at home where I make clothes for all the family and our friends.”

Radna Jassin admitted that she regarded her team’s design made from Asda bags more as “a piece of art” rather than a wearable outfit. “It’s punky and funky and you might get away with it around Camden Town,” she added.

However Niya Mignott said his team had deliberately set out to produce a wearable creation using Sainsbury’s bags. “We had a discussion and decided we wanted to design something that somebody might want to wear to a club.

“This project has taught me how to be creative, work as a team, how to use different ideas, and also how to compromise.”

Sarah Yombo said her team drew on the 1970s for inspiration for her beachwear outfit of knitted bra and matching skirt. “I had just been taught how to knit so I thought of incorporating knitting into the design,” she explained.

The conical bra worn by Madonna was the inspiration behind the outfit which featured a multi-coned bra designed by Luqman Ali’s team. He said: “You can do a lot of things with plastic that you can’t do with other fabrics, like burning it to make it tighter and crunchier.”

Shumaila Aslam said her team’s red, white and blue creation made from Tesco bags was designed to resemble a 19th century promenade dress with elaborate hat that elegant ladies might wear on their walks in the park. “We ironed and cut and steamed the bags and painted some of them to create the effect,” she added.

Saidah Kitimbo wants to continue her studies at the London School of Fashion when she completes her BTEC course and believes the skills she learned on the project will help her get there. “It was a fun to experiment and it proved that you can make anything out of plastic bags by using different techniques.”

The College runs a range of fashion courses to suit people at all levels. The majority of students progress to university or straight into employment, following the successful completion of their courses. For information about courses available at Waltham Forest College please phone 020 8501 8501, email info@waltham.ac.uk

Duke of Edinburgh Weekend

The BTEC National certificate Public Services (Uniformed) course recently underwent a practice expedition run at Suntrap education centre in High Beech, Epping Forest.

The students, who are working towards their bronze award practised how to put up tents, cook using minimal resources, orienteer and practise map reading skills whilst also doing a brisk 4 hour walk through the forest in the rain.

The next challenge is to plan, prepare and undertake a 3 day, 2 night venture in the Gower, Wales at the end of June.

There is also to be at least 6 hours of planned activity each day.

Well done all, and good luck!

Palma Paella

Where's the best place to go to try Paella?

We think it might be Palma Majorca.

Paella is just one thing we tried when BTEC National Diploma Travel and Tourism Year One went on a fact finding mission.

The main objective was to reseach and understand the marketing activities and and customer service provisions of a number of different travel and tourism organisations.

However, we admit that we did get time to visit the aquarium and to check out the beach at Can Pastilla.

Belfast under the microscope

The BTEC National Certificate Public Services (uniformed) year 1 students took an investigative journey to Belfast recently.

Whilst there we went on an open top bus tour of the city.

We travelled along the Shankill Road in West Belfast. Throughout the city there are murals depicting local para-military groups such as the UVF, UDA and UFF. Our guide explained some of the intricacies of this delicate situation.

We passed the Belfast Peace Line or Peace Wall, and drove through the Peace Gates in Townsend Street, a physical barrier for vehicles separating the Shankill Road and Falls Road. Staying in West Belfast, we drove along the predominantly Irish Republican or Catholic Falls Road. Here we saw murals showing allegiance with other groups from around the world. We also passed the Sinn Fein Headquarters and the famous Bobby Sands mural at Sevastapol Street.

On the second day we were picked up by police minibuses and driven to the PSNI training centre (Police Service of Northern Ireland) Lisnasharragh complex where we were met by Chief Inspector Kevin Smith (Head of combined operational training). Scones, tea and coffee were laid on and we started our day at police training college.

Chief Inspector Arthur Davidson facilitated an informative session on operational emergency planning which included topics such as the roles of the police, ambulance, fire services and local authorities in major incident emergency planning.

Arthur explained the bronze operational, silver tactical and gold strategic chain of command. Arthur also focused on the importance of teamwork in emergency planning and interagency cooperation.

He gave practical examples of joint emergency planning, training and exercising within the Northern Ireland public services. Arthur also focused on the challenges of emergency planning and focused on the Whiterock 2005 public disorder and the Omagh bombing as real life examples.

We had a delicious lunch buffet courtesy of the PSNI and in the afternoon Constable Michael Hutchinson (Firearms and tactical trainer) facilitated a theoretical and practical session in which he prepared a tabletop scenario of a major incident where a lorry had Just driven into a Fridge Plant room and caused structural damage as well as breaking some pipe work to a Liquid Ammonia Storage System releasing Ammonia gas into the surrounding area.

The students were split into groups representing different uniformed and non-uniformed public services e.g. fire, police, local authorities and NHS. The students role played a major incident table top scenario where they had to cooperate, coordinate and communicate with each other as how to best contain and deal with the emergency. The exercise was well planned and delievered by Michael and Kevin and the students thoroughly enjoyed participating in it as well as covering assessment criteria for their planning for and management of major incidents unit.

We also were introduced to Tom Johnson Sergeant Press officer at the Lisnasharragh police headquarters and he explained how in an emergency incident his department works with the world's press to cover relevant stories.

We were taken back to George Best International Airport in the police minibuses after a very informative, educational and enlightening day.

The staff and students on the Public Services (uniformed) course thank all the staff at PSNI for their hospitality on a very educational and enjoyable day.

Another brick in the wall

In the first of this term's trips, it was the turn of the BTEC National Certificate Public Services Uniformed Year 2 to go to the wall. The Berlin Wall.

Not only was the wall a focal point, but we were able look around the whole of Berlin itself.

We checked out Checkpoint Charlie, which, although now purely a tourist attraction, used to be the famous crossing point between East and West Berlin during the Cold War.

The Public Services teaching team joined us 11 students as we researched more into the history of World War Two and looked at how a modern unified Germany was building its tourist and leisure industry.

A prize evening for all

Wednesday evening saw a packed Mallinson Restaurant as the School of Service Industries put on the Hospitality and Tourism Prize Giving Evening.

Everything was organised very professionally, with 'meeting and greeting' in the reception area, and friends and relatives of those attending being shown the way to the Mallinson.

The event started with the presentations, and ended with canapes.

Here's the 'rolecall': (if we miss anybody out, apologies, let us know)

NVQ Catering Full Time - Chef of the Year 1

MARTIN DONNELLY

NVQ Catering Full Time - Chef of the Year 2

EURELL WATT

NVQ Part Time Catering Students' Award

ABIR HAMMOUD

Smithfield Student of the Year

CHRIS PHIPPS

Smithfield Most Improved Student

CHRIS HUSSEY

The Restaurant Association Merit Awards for Organisational Skills in Food Service & Food Preparation

LEON WILLIAMS & EURELL WATT

Ready, Steady Cook! Competition winners

MARTIN DONNELLY & MICHAEL POOLEY;

JACQUELINE CANE & JESSICA

KELLY;

LEON WILLIAMS & NATASHA HUCKFIELD-HOUGHTON

The OCN Pathway Awards Catering and T.H.L.

JACQUELINE CANE, HECTOR RODRIGUEZ & ACLIMA RUSMAULLY

Travel & Tourism Awards -BTEC 1st Dip.

DAVE ONAWELO

BTEC National T &T Yr 1

SANDRA ASAMOAH

BTEC National T & T Yr 2

SHERBANO JOOMUNNVQ

Best Work-based Student of the Year

MONICA CHARLES

BTEC National Public Services Students of the Year

Year 1 -

STEPHEN DARLOW

Year 2 -

NASEER ABBAS

BTEC 1st Diploma in Sport -

KULATEN SAID

BTEC National, Sports Development & Fitness Students of the Year

LISIMBA WELCH & THEOPHANIS GEORGIOU

HND Special Award for Peer Support -

MELEK OZDEMIR (pictured with her basket of fruit)

HND - Best Work Experience Student

GINA NDOMBE

HND - BEST GRADES - 2006

ANDREZA GONCALVES (pictured with her certificate)

Andreza told us, "I just wanted to let you know that I have applied to the Hilton Elevator General Manager programme and I've made it through all four stages! I was one of 6 chosen out of 3500 applicants! I will be starting in September with a 9 month placement in the UK and thereafter, a 9 month placement abroad. I am so excited."

Our team shines in tournament

Eight students represented WFC in the annual basketball tournament hosted by Enfield College.

Leading up to the event we had held trials at Forest Road YMCA and were, to be perfectly honest, rather disappointed with the turn out. Fortunately, of those who did attend, we had a rich mix of talent and were reasonably confident of making a good showing of ourselves.

The format for the tournament meant that the nine Colleges present were pooled into three groups of three. The league phase was played over 1 period of 10mins, rolling clock.

Our first game was against B6 Brookhouse who play out of Hackney. The early exchanges were, as expected, fraught with turnovers and missed opportunities as both sides tried to settle. B6 were first to get into their rhythm and took up a 9-2 lead on 5mins.

However we didn’t panic and with some good accurate passing from Michael and Andrius and some excellent aggressive defence from Mamomi (“Golde”), we cut into the deficit and with 1min of the game left trailed by 15-12.

Iain then picked up the ball on halfway and we all felt assured that we could keep our hopes alive, even though time was running out. But as he made a desperate attempt to drive towards the basketball he was alleged to have fouled the opposition centre and we turned the ball over with only 15secs remaining on the clock.

Playing a full court press, all players dug in, to deny Brookhouse time and space. Under this pressure their number 10 misplaced an easy lay-up and Seb Pardo rebounded the ball deep in his own half. Dribbling up to just in side halfway and, with the clock showing 1sec, Seb released a shot which flew straight into the basket for three miraculous points………..UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!!

After some celebration involving the majority of those present we went into 1min of overtime and managed to hold off Brookhouse, finally winning the game 17pts to 15pts. A very enjoyable and some would say memorable game.

Our second contest was against Carshalton College and it was clear from the “tip” that we had the upper hand on offence and defence. Michael used his physical attributes to dominate the boards and collect a nine point personal tally.

Javin, Malik and Jeffrey also had strong contributions and we ended the game victorious wining 17pts to 10pts.

Two from two and we were through to the semi finals against Sir George Monoux College.

The last four matches were scheduled for two 7min periods but as the tournament had overrun officials were forced to reduce game times down to a one period of eight minutes.

SGM had been the form side of the tournament showing fluid and well drilled patterns of play during their two qualifying games. We were not intimidated with what we had seen and started confidently matching scores early on. But as the game developed their experience showed and we ended up going down 20pts – 12pts.
A very promising start for WFC Basketball Team, well done lads.

The players:
Andrius and Iain (ESOL New Start), Javin and Malik (Intermediate Business + ICT), Jeffrey (Btec National Sports), Michael (Btec 1st Diploma Sport) and Captain Mamomi (Access to Buisness).

If you are interested in playing competitive basketball for the College please contact Mark Jarvis – Sports & Student Activities Manager: mjarvis@waltham.ac.uk
Tel: 020 8501 8173

Mysterious ray zaps students at airport

Could it be that what you are seeing is the final moments before students were zapped by a death ray?

Or is it before they were dematerialised by some transporter beam?

Nope.

It's just the BTEC First Diploma travel and tourism students wearing extremely flattering refective jackets.

We recently visited London City Airport, and were able to see airport and airline operations in action.

We had the opportunity to go both landside and air side (for which normal access is for departing and arriving air passengers only).

It was a very enjoyable and informative trip and one which lots of information could be gathered so as to complete many courseworks.

Entwined in Fashion

Waltham Forest College was last but not least at the Alternative Fashion Show in London's Spitalfields Market.

As the very last exhibitors we tried to give those who were braving the freezing cold winds a show to remember.

This is Katie just one of the ten models showing off the 'Entwined' collection created by the BTEC National Diploma fashion students.

Anyway, when we first got there we were put through our paces and at first were terrified (erm, as you can see below) but it all worked out brilliantly in the end.

Students were given a basic foundation shape from which they were asked to be as creative as possible.

The entwining of various metallic coloured fabrics resulted in visually beautiful evening dresses capturing varying shades of gold and silver, as you can see.

Phew!

Lochness Monster scared by WFC students

Nessie, the Lochness Monster, decided to avoid students from Waltham Forest College despite us searching for her. We popped in to look for her during our trip to Inverness, but nothing.

We went to Inverness to undertake research for the BTEC 1st Diploma Travel and Tourism course.

We visited the Inverness College where the travel and tourism students did a presentation on the Highlands and Invernesshire.

Then it was our turn and we did a presentation on London and England as a tourist destination.

Afterwards we were served up Venison, Haggis and Shortcake in the form of a traditional Scottish meal.

It was served to us by the catering and hospitality students of Inverness college.

Then, before coming back to England, we managed to see more of the sights and take in a little of the evening life.

An Italian rival for the Mallinson

Can you believe it? Is this really a rival to the Mallinson Restaurant?

Well, it's very similar, just nearly two thousand kilometres away in Italy.

We discovered it when the BTEC 1st Diploma Travel and Tourism class recently paid a visit to Ancona, Italy. We went over to visit a college in Senigallia, a seaside resort, in the North of Ancona.

The college specialises in catering, hospitality and tourism.
When we first arrived we were introduced to the Principal of the college and the two Head Tourism teachers.

We did presentations on English food, lifestyle, culture and tourism issues and then the Italian students also did their presentations on similar matters.

After the presentations the catering students at the Instituto Panzini served us freshly cooked Italian food in their catering training restaurant - the one that looks a bit like the Mallinson.

We learnt a lot about Italian education systems and made some very good friends as well as getting to experience first hand, the Italian food and culture. All of this gave us some invaluable material for our assignments too.

Lockerbie: A Special Report

Year 1 BTEC National Certificate Uniformed Public Services students got a rare opportunity to visit Lockerbie last weekend. This is where, in December 1988, Pan Am flight 103 was destroyed in flight by a bomb on board. 259 people on board were killed, and 11 people were killed in their homes when pieces of the plane crashed down in a fiery explosion.

We drove to Dryfesdale cemetery and were shown around the national memorial site for all those who perished in the disaster.

We then went to a small village 5 miles outside of Lockerbie called Tundergarth which is where the cockpit of the aircraft was found (most used image by the media) and which is 100 metres away from a church, where they built a rememberance room which contains a visitor book and an autobiography of each passenger on the aircraft.
Tom Gordon from the local police kindly escorted us around the crash sites.

We then went to Sherwood Crescent and Rosebank which are literally two streets of houses. We drove through where three houses were totally destroyed and where the 11 people on the ground died.

Strangely, it is now like any other residential street and we could see the residents through their front windows watching Neighbours.

After the quick tour of the areas we drove to our accommodation in Newton Stewart (25 miles from Stranraer) and had a pleasant evening where we ate our home made meal (Spaghetti Bolognese).

Friday Morning at 7.00am we left for our drive to Dumfires, where we were meeting Tom Gordon and the guest speakers at Dumfries and Galloway Police headquarters. The Chief Constable David J R Strang introduced himself to us and thanked us for coming up.

We were given a background and Response to the Lockerbie air disaster, an overview of the investigation, a background on the trial and a talk on emergency procedures used nowadays. We listened to guest speakers from the Police, Local Authority and Fire and Rescue services.

The students were also given the opportunity to see the emergency control call centre. The Police Service provided us with scones, coffee and tea for the first break and then put on a full buffet for lunch and afternoon refreshments also.

The trip was very informative and all aspects of the Major Incidents Unit were covered in detail by the guest speakers.

The students asked many questions and were able to get a complete understanding of the disaster, how the emergency services responded, the aftermath, and how things have changed since.

The Light, some Poison, and a Skull

Poison!

"Poison Sea - Poison Me."


How would you artistically interpret the concept of how we are poisoning our planet?


This question was put to students on the BTEC Diploma in Foundation Studies In Art course.


Amongst the initial responses were these 3D collages from mature student Pam showing the horror of an oil tanker causing disaster on the beach, and then this poor fish swimming in the dirty slick below.

The collages are three dimensional and can be touched - assuming you don't mind the slightly yeuchy feeling of the oily fish's dirty scales and fins.



Pam told us she thinks the course is "fantastic".


Erik agreed with her saying he is really enjoying his time developing his artistic skills.


He proudly wanted to show-off this moody and thought provoking work dealing with the Impact of Light.





Finally it was the turn of Eleni to step forward to your blog photographer.

"Photograph this" she demanded without a very clear explanation as to what "this" actually was.

Or maybe that should read 'who' this was rather than 'what' it was.

It looks like we may need to return to the Foundation Studies in Art course to investigate this further in the future!

"Which way to the canteen,

blad?

I's starvin' to death innit!"





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