Team UK has landed in Shanghai and spent the weekend getting into the mindset to compete on the global stage, and I cannot wait to cheer them on. They are representing our country and our skills sector on the global stage and doing so at an extraordinary standard. Every competitor wants to perform at their very best. We want medals, and we should never be embarrassed about saying so. Medals matter. They recognise exceptional performance, inspire others and show what UK skills excellence looks like on the global stage. We should be unapologetically ambitious for every member of Team UK. But WorldSkills is about much more than the medal table. For each member of Team UK, this is a life-changing experience. They will test themselves against the very best young professionals in the world, under intense pressure and against exacting international standards. They will return with greater confidence, deeper technical expertise and a new range of skills ready to further their careers. The competition matters to the UK for the same reason. WorldSkills gives us a rare opportunity to benchmark our technical education and training against the best in the world. It allows us to see where global standards are heading, understand how other countries are developing their young people and use those insights to raise standards in technical education and training right across the UK to benefit learners, educators, and employers. We do this through our Centre of Excellence professional development programme in partnership with NCFE, which is already reaching more than 165 institutions and hundreds of thousands of learners and apprentices. I know first-hand the impact that this has had on my college, I have seen tutors remotivated, students inspired and attendance and achievement rates improved. WorldSkills UK also uses international expertise to power growth in skills through new teaching excellence package for Technical Excellence Colleges. Team UK is competing in 25 of the 64 skills at WorldSkills Shanghai. While other countries are taking larger teams (Brazil and China both have 71 competitors, entered across all 64 categories) we have made a strategic choice to take a smaller team and focus our resources on spreading the benefits of international best practice to help young people thrive in the world of work. There are two sides to the WorldSkills coin – competing at the highest level so that we understand what it takes to be the best and then taking international best practice back to the UK. Both are valuable and you can’t have one without the other. None of this would be possible without the extraordinary commitment of the people behind Team UK, the training managers who give up evenings and weekends, the employers and training providers who invest their time and expertise, and the WorldSkills UK staff who work tirelessly to prepare and support the team and the official partner of Team UK, Pearson. So, my ask of the sector is simple: get behind Team UK this week. Celebrate their ambition, recognise everything it has taken to reach this point, cheer them on as they represent the UK among the very best in the world. But let’s also make sure we bring home the learning, insight and ambition that can transform opportunities for young people across the UK.