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The director of a hairdressing training school has called for more funding for professional courses in the island – criticising the "disparity" between how academic and vocational studies are supported.
Launched in 2016 as part of NEON hair salon, NEON training school gives aspiring hairdressers and barbers the chance to learn the tricks of the trade.
The students were recently offered the opportunity to work with a professional photographer to create their own editorial collection.
Pictured: Victoria Queree is the owner of NEON hair salon and training school.
NEON director Victoria Queree sat down with Express to discuss her students' recent success, the local industry, and what more the island could do to support vocational study...
On their beginner course, they learn the fundamental skills required to be a hairdresser and this includes shampoo, styling, cutting and colouring.
On their advanced course, the students learn how to develop their creativity – and part of this is creating an image for a photo shoot.
Oliver Doran, an amazing photographer, kindly opened his studio to our students and offered them guidance on how to create an editorial collection.
He took them through the full process from conception to realisation, and our students hung on his every word!
Pictured: Local photographer Oliver Doran recently opened his studio to NEON students.
Prior to the shoot we gave our students a brief to work to but very much stepped back as we wanted them to step into their own creativity and didn’t want to “influence”.
The work you see is very much their ideas.
Our students have never experienced a photoshoot before, never mind with someone like Oliver.
Oliver is exceptional and really went into a lot of detail throughout the process, explaining exactly what they should be looking for when collating a collection.
The students loved the whole experience and, on the day they viewed their final images, they were so proud of what they had created.
As a learning experience, this exceeded expectations.
Immensely proud! The students who worked on this particular shoot only started training with us in 2022.
We put a huge amount of effort into preparing our students for industry but this group have exceeded our expectations.
They are definitely ones to watch.
We have been extremely well supported by the local industry, and we have had full apprenticeship groups each year.
The only exception was during the pandemic where we paused for a year as we didn’t feel we could offer our learners the full learning experience while having to social distance.
Pictured: "The students loved the whole experience and, on the day they viewed their final images, they were so proud of what they had created."
Unfortunately, this has had a long knock-on effect as the apprentices following the pandemic year are only now filtering through and starting to make an impact in their salons.
Recruitment is an ongoing problem for salons and, alongside our apprenticeship courses, we will be launching a part-time evening class from January.
This is for those that have an interest but can’t commit to a full apprenticeship.
It’s an excellent course for career changers or those who want to get back into work.
As it’s in the evening. it fits perfectly around work/family commitments.
I don’t necessarily think we need more vocational options. but I do think the vocational options we have need a funding review if they are to be sustainable.
I think there needs to be more value placed on the funding of vocational study in Jersey.
At the moment, there is a disparity between academic and vocational studies and how they are supported.
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