LEADING employers will be joining Cirencester Sixth Form College staff and students on Thursday, February 26 for the opening of their new Santander Enterprise Room.

The room has been created with the £5,000 prize received by the College for winning the Santander Career Academy of the Year Award in 2014.

Cirencester Sixth Form College’s Career Academies programme was judged the winner from over 140 schools and colleges across the UK in recognition of the quality of provision on their Academy courses.

The Santander Enterprise Room will be used to support the College’s employability skills initiative, by offering students a base to work from when they are working with employers and mentors.

Simon Page of Career Academies UK commented: “Receiving last year’s Santander Career Academy of the Year award was fantastic recognition for the very impressive programme at Cirencester College and I am delighted to see them going from strength-to-strength, using the award funding to provide some exciting new facilities for their students.

The Santander Enterprise Room will allow students to gain an understanding of the types of environment and equipment they are likely to be using in their future careers, and it will help encourage them to develop some of the behaviours and attitudes expected in the workplace.”

The room will be split into 3 ‘zones’, with one zone containing office-style workstations, equipped with laptops to support group-working tasks.

The second zone is to be equipped with a boardroom-style table, a wall mounted TV and conference phone to support meetings and presentations. There will also be an informal area with comfortable seating and coffee table to support review meetings and discussions with mentors.