Harnessing industry experience to inspire tomorrow’s talent

Enfields Kitchen will open its doors again to customers this month.

Set on the first floor of Gateshead College’s Baltic campus, this is a restaurant with a difference.

It is run by Gateshead College catering students – with a little guidance from their three teachers – who are given every hands-on kitchen experience, from prep-to-plate and anything in between.

The new term also means catering teacher Catherine Smith will welcome her first intake into the college since she joined in March.

Catherine is no stranger to Enfields Kitchen and its long-term benefits.

She has worked here – she studied and perfected her patisserie craft in the kitchen classrooms next door – before going on to thrive in one of the most demanding restaurants in the country.

More than ten years ago, Catherine trained at Gateshead College as an adult learner, winning student of the year in 2013, before embarking on a successful career in the culinary world.

After working at Jesmond Dene House, she had a four-year stint at The Ritz in London, then Bettys Cookery School in Harrogate and the Alice Hawthorne, near York, before returning to the North East and Blackfriars in Newcastle.

And now she is back where it all started, determined to inspire the students of tomorrow.

And she knows Enfields Kitchen is the perfect environment to learn every aspect of their trade.

Catherine, who is undertaking a vocational assessors course at the start of term, says: “The restaurant experience is huge.

“When you enrol on one of the three courses here, you’re also expected to do front of house.

“So, when students come along, they might sign up thinking, ‘I want to be a chef’, and we have to remind them that as well as doing that, they’ll also be serving customers in the restaurant.

“It is getting them prepared for the industry, and giving them guidance on where they want to work.

“I want to open students’ eyes to what it’s about and point them in the right direction, and Gateshead College is all about getting students into jobs and the right environment.

“If you haven’t worked in the industry yourself, it’s hard to give them advice.

“They get the benefit of the people with industry experience.”

On the day we meet, without the bar, coffee machine and functioning wine fridge, it’s hard to believe Enfields Kitchen is a restaurant at all.

A deep-clean has been in progress for several weeks, so every knife and fork, plate, colour-coded chopping board, herb and spice, cooking utensil, pot and pan is piled high and shining neatly in the mid-morning sunlight.

Catherine’s interest in cooking was sparked by Granny Jean in her farmhouse kitchen on Hill Head Farm, in Shilbottle, near Alnwick, which is now run by her brother Gordon.

She was always interested in food and baking, but from a young age didn’t realise she could be ‘taught’ cookery skills.

That would explain the countryside management degree at Aberystwyth University and signing up for a one-year cookery course at Gateshead College four years later, which eventually saw her join the pastry team at The Ritz.

She now wants to teach nearer home and inspire new generations, including the apprentices in the kitchen who have year-long roles at places such as Fenwick, and are in college practising for their all-important assessments.

Catherine says: “I knew this was an opportunity I couldn’t turn down.

“I’d been doing some teaching and was really enjoying it, and thought it would be really nice to do it on a level where you have a year with the same students, and you can nurture people over time.

“When I was here, the things that stood out were the guest speakers with the interesting stories – like the ex-head chef of The Ritz who had an unbelievable life story.

“I can now tell students my story.

“A – I didn’t know I wanted to be a chef straightaway, and B – I took the wrong course when I first came out of school.

“In one of my first talks here, I showed them some photos of the very first cake I’d made compared to ones years later, because I like to show people my development as a chef.

“You don’t have to be brilliant right from the beginning; I’m still learning loads of things now.

“I think that’s a good and inspiring story, without bragging. I’ve got lots of those!”

Over at the Gateshead College Skills Academy for Automotive and Engineering, in Team Valley, Charlotte Brass has also been preparing for the return of students for her ninth year.

Like Catherine, Charlotte is using her vast experience in the workplace to help shape the future of mechanical engineering in her role as curriculum leader for apprenticeships and higher education.

Charlotte joined Chirton Engineering in her hometown of North Shields as a 16-year-old mechanical engineering apprentice, where she worked for six years.

It’s no surprise to hear at times, most times in fact, that it was ‘difficult’.

But nor is it a surprise that she is – and was – unfazed. She loves her job.

She was, though, becoming increasingly frustrated with the apprentices she encountered on the factory floor, and turned to teaching to bridge the gap between education and the workplace.

Her appointment at Gateshead College eight years ago was a natural fit.

She says: “I got to a point where I was sick of apprentices coming in and not getting a proper education, and I just wanted to make a difference.

“The company was taking apprentices on every year, and they were just getting worse and worse.

“And it wasn’t anything the company was doing – it was the training providers letting them down.

“Students needed to go on the machines and learn the skills they required before coming to an employer.

“You can read as many books as you want, but if you haven’t actually done the job, you’re not going to know.

“Things happen in life that you don’t expect, and it is the same with your machine.

“The textbook can’t teach you how to fix it.

“I like getting the students and apprentices on the machines, so they can run it and see what happens.

“Whatever problems occur, we fix them. That’s how they learn.”

With her contacts throughout the North East at firms including Siemens and Aberlink, Charlotte has created one of the best apprenticeship schemes in the country, providing technical and educational back-up on a weekly basis from a glass-fronted base Bond’s Q would be proud of.

Charlotte certainly is.

She too spent the summer putting the finishing touches to the purpose-built large ‘office’ on the ground floor and its collection of hi-tech equipment used in factories across the world.

Charlotte is at home here.

She cannot wait to see these machines and computers in action, controlled by 50 new students as they grasp the complexities of the equipment in a range of courses including level three maintenance apprenticeship, level three machining, level three plate welder and level two engineering operative.

She says: “I wanted to see apprentices going into industry with a better set of skills.

“I wanted to pass on my knowledge and my experience.

“A lot of my happiness comes from other people’s happiness; I love helping other people.

“Before I started work, when I was 14, I was doing Duke of Edinburgh, and I worked at Scope, which I absolutely loved.

“I’ve been like that my whole life; any time I can do something to try and help other people, I’ll do it.

“When an apprentice finishes the apprenticeship and they get that achievement, that’s an achievement for me as well, because we’ve worked together.

“And when I go into places like Ford Aerospace, the apprentices who are working there now are still dead excited to see me.

“It’s just nice seeing them growing and seeing the difference they’re making in that company.

“I love it.”

Gateshead College

To learn more about Gateshead College – which is this year celebrating its 80th anniversary – and the courses its provides, visit www.gateshead.ac.uk.

LinkedIn – Gateshead College

 

Photography by Andrew Lowe