Showcase day for college

Shuttleworth College trains young people for careers in agricultural all over the UK and the world.

Potential students can find out about careers from arboriculture to zoology on a visit to the 500-acre Old Warden Park estate.

The open day is being held on Saturday, November 7 from 9.30am until 12.30pm.

Shuttleworth College director Mike Johnston said: “The open day is to show potential students from surrounding districts our internationally recognised outdoor-learning college right on their doorstep.”

One former student, Blake Allsop, is an Olympic hopeful who combined his three-day-a-week course at Shuttleworth College with regular training at the Lee Valley White Water Centre in Hertfordshire.

He was part of the Junior GB canoeing squad and hopes to be part of the senior team in the future as the new 2015/16 season gets underway. His ultimate aim is compete in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Shuttleworth College puts Old Warden on the international map for land-based learning and its alumni work all over the globe in various aspects of agriculture.

It was recently visited by the Archbishop of Canterbury and featured on BBC’s Countryfile for training farming students from Africa.

Its work in saving the Warden Pear as featured in Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale has been featured in national media and on TV.

Prior to that, Shuttleworth was featured on TV with Jamie Oliver and his production crew.

A donation made by Jamie enabled Shuttleworth to buy a Red Poll bull, named Hinwick Zulu, who has since sired over 30 calves, some of which have been exhibited at local and county shows and picked up several rosettes.