The head of the academy of hair and beauty at West Suffolk College has joined the board of the Fellowship for British Hairdressing.
Marnie Williams – who works for an organisation that is part of Eastern Education Group – was given the role to help promote the value and importance of colleges across the country.
Her mission to raise the bar of the standards in further education started three years ago.
And as a result of her efforts, Marnie has been asked to become the Head of FE (Further Education Colleges & Centres of Excellence) at the Fellowship for British Hairdressing.
Marnie explains how it all came about. She said: “I wanted to create a Centre of Excellence scheme for colleges working in further education. There is so much great work that goes on in further education and I’m keen to recognise this on a national scale. After lots of meetings and visits, we (The Fellowship) are beginning to change the often-negative narrative by celebrating hairdressing education in our college and others. We now have nine centres across the UK. We recognise high quality education by raising standards. We introduce students to masterclasses with top industry experts to help them realise their potential and open-up a world of opportunity to them. My role is to develop this Centre of Excellence scheme, create career opportunities in industry and support The Fellowship to develop the hairdressing stars of the future.”
On being given this position, Marnie added: “I’m very proud to be given this role and it’s an honour to have been invited to join the board of The Fellowship for British Hairdressing alongside so many prestigious industry names.”
In addition to Marnie’s new role, she has just signed a deal with the hairdressing big hitter Vidal Sassoon to support the training of staff based at West Suffolk College.
In terms of this link up, Marnie said: “Vidal Sassoon have an international programme called Sassoon Connect delivered in their private academies all over the world. They offer modules of well-established training – they are the crème de la crème– and they have come to us first as they are keen to work with an established educational organisation. They will now be training eight of our current staff – and after this, our teachers will be qualified by Vidal Sassoon to train our students the Vidal Sassoon module. It’s amazing thing to be involved in and we are very thankful for this opportunity for our staff – and also our students and the local industry.”
