Kirklees College celebrates its graduates

Higher education students were celebrated in style when they took to the stage to collect their Higher Education graduation certificates in a ceremony held at Dewsbury Town Hall.

Students wore traditional gowns and caps to receive their certificates from college principal Marie Gilluley; former HE graduate Adam Ali; Kirklees College Head of Sales and Marketing, Lydia Butterworth, Assistant Academic Registrar at Teesside University; Janet Stocks, Danielle Fallon Head of Sales and Marketing TQUK; and Philippa Firth, Assistant Principal – adult and higher education.

The ceremony saw 134 students graduate from their courses, receiving awards including qualifications in mechanical engineering, animal and equine management, early years’ education, computing, fashion, fine art for design, graphic design, photography and moving image, therapeutic counselling and education.

Adam Ali was the guest speaker at this year’s ceremony and is a former Kirklees College student who studied on our Peter Jones Enterprise Academy course. Adam went onto win the very prestigious National Entrepreneur of the Year award and also star in a BBC documentary series about successful young entrepreneurs. He founded his Huddersfield based business DIGISEE Ltd in 2018, a digital display solutions company, where he is the owner and managing director.

Adam spoke about his experience at college, his success in winning National Entrepreneur of the Year and how a chance encounter in a take away shop led to the idea behind his successful business and was the start of his now well established company.

He said that he had managed to achieve much of his success through sheer hard work and determination, and encouraged the graduating class to never give up and keep working for what they wanted.

The ceremony was littered with surprises as graduates were treated to two singing performances from local schools. Dewsbury based Carlton Junior and Infant School opened up the ceremony with their rendition of ‘This is Me’ and Eastborough Junior and Infant School closed the celebrations with the hit song ‘A Million Dreams’ from the musical, The Greatest Showman. Both emotional performances left the audience in tears before the surprise cannon confetti finale.

Principal Marie Gilluley said: “As principal, the best part of my job is to attend events such as these, where we are coming together to celebrate the achievements of our many talented students.

“I would like to congratulate every one of you. You have made us all very proud. I hope that you enjoyed this day because you truly deserve it.”

Kirklees College has ranked alongside some of the country’s top universities when it comes to higher education teaching provision – gaining a silver in the Government’s Teaching Excellence Framework. The rankings are based on teaching quality, learning environment, and student outcomes and learning gain.