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The NextGen Skills Academy
As thousands of young people across the country start the new school year, and contemplate their final year of studies before they sit their GCSE exams, many will be asking themselves ‘what next?’
Lots of them will be avid movie buffs or will have enjoyed playing the latest videogames over the summer holidays or in their spare time and it is these very forms of entertainment that could provide the answer to that question.
The advent of modern technologies has created career opportunities in a host of cutting-edge industries based around digital entertainment. Whether it’s creating the next Assassin’s Creed game, animating the next Shaun the Sheep movie or adding visual effects to Oscar-winning blockbuster movies like Gravity or Interstellar, there are fantastic opportunities for young people to turn their personal passions into highly professional careers.
The question is how do you get from finishing your GCSEs to actually sitting in a game design studio and working on the creation of this year’s best-selling videogame? For certain jobs and industries, the path to an ideal career might be obvious. In the creative industries, that isn’t always the case and young people might not think that careers in games, TV animation or visual effects (VFX) are accessible to them at all.
But here is the good news from those who have been there; today students making decisions about their future career journey not only have access to a wide range of information about what to do next, but they have fantastic choices about further education opportunities which are vocational and can help to guide them into their chosen careers with ease.
NextGen Skills Academy is a new government-invested initiative that is dedicated to developing the next generation of creative talent for the games, animation and VFX industries.
By working closely with employers in these areas to identify what skills they are looking for when they recruit young people, NextGen has been able to create a brand new qualification for 16+ year olds that offers young people the skills, techniques and experience these companies need right now.
The Level 3 Extended Diploma in Games, Animation and VFX Skills (comparable to 3 A Levels) launches in four colleges across England from September 2015. The 2-year course will give students a broad range of knowledge, which encompasses everything from game and audio design to programming and 3D modelling and texturing. It will provide the opportunity to develop the fundamental technical, artistic and industry practice skills that employers are demanding as well as encouraging students to learn how and why maths and programming are so important to the successful creation of any game, animation or visual effect ‘product’.
At the end of the course, students will have built a solid portfolio of work, which can be used as they move into higher education or apprenticeships with employers.