Dancing stars at Walsall College put on a special performance at two of the nation’s biggest venues.

Students last month performed a short piece inspired by The Nutcracker and choreographed with support from Dance Xchange and New Adventures, to 100 specially invited guests at the Royal Opera House in London.

It took place at an official presentation of a review into cultural education in England, commissioned by Ed Vaizey MP, minister for culture, communications and the creative industries.

In early February, the students performed a longer version of the dance at the Birmingham Hippodrome, for the curtain raiser, before the professional cast from New Adventures performed Matthew Bourne’s adaptation of The Nutcracker.

Walsall College dance lecturer Faye Cox said: “It was an incredible honour for our students to be invited to such a prestigious event.

“They took everything in their stride and staged a professionally delivered performance.

“They are a credit to the College and were excellent ambassadors for the arts at the event.”

A student at Cornwall College has been crowned the winner in a national cookery competition.

Grace Mathews (21), from Gulval, near Penzance, will now have her dish produced by a leading UK supermarket in time for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee later this year.

Grace, who is studying the Professional Cookery Diploma (Kitchen and Larder) VRQ3 course, created her Bramley Crumble Tart using seasonal local produce for another competition earlier this year and decided to enter it for the Bramley Diamond Dishes Competition, organised by the Bramley Apple Information Service.

She said: “I tried to find a seasonal ingredient for my dessert dish and chose Bramley apples, which are in season in February, and everyone loves apples. It seemed perfect timing, so I decided to enter the dish in this competition too.”

Following a Facebook campaign, Grace’s Bramley Crumble Tart will now be developed to go on sale exclusively in UK Sainsbury’s stores.

Anyone who has been to Old Hall at University Centre Doncaster recently will have noticed the walls have been transformed by a splash of colour.

The Hall, which includes four large corridors and several entrance foyers, has been transformed by painting and decorating students from Doncaster College.

The students involved had to take measurements as well as take into consideration health and safety due to working in a live environment.

The project involved various departments working together across the college, including estates, painting and decorating lecturer Neal Preskey and students, marketing and senior management and art lecturer Mike Bunn and students from arts courses.

Errol Michell, from marketing, said: “It would have been easy to select safe but obvious colours on the walls and a transitional approach would have been just that, so change and a visually strong change was the choice.”

Former Premier League football referee Uriah Rennie visited Chesterfield College to launch its brand new Referee Academy programme.

More than 25 students have signed up to the programme so far, which complements the college’s already-established football academies that place young people back into the game, all while they gain their qualifications.

Sports lecturer Neil Cluxton said: “Uriah was great. He’s an ex-student so he came back to talk to the children and give them one or two pointers.

“Young people often get a bad press but we’ve loads of really keen students, both boys and girls, at the college who get involved in voluntary work and we wanted to see if we can get them in to refereeing too.

“This may be the start of a very successful refereeing career for some.”

Many of the students have already started refereeing at the game’s youth level and it’s hoped that following the academy students will gain a qualification to allow them to officiate senior games locally and earn valuable experience.

The programme was also featured as part of the Get Involved campaign by Sky Sports News.

A powerful message was delivered at Alton College during Driving Awareness Week.

The week started with a driving simulator where students tested their driving abilities.

Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service also visited the college to demonstrate how they approach and deal with collisions.

Hundreds of students witnessed volunteer Yegor Ryazanov act as the victim as several officers removed the whole roof from the car using a powerful saw.

Yegor, the current Students’ Union President at Alton College, said: “I was very fearful in there.

“Everyone really needs to take care when driving and make sure they are driving at an appropriate speed for the road.”

City College Norwich has unveiled plans for a £5.7m state-of-the-art building for all of its students in the creative arts from September 2013. The planned building will be sited at the college’s main Ipswich Road campus, on the site of the former West Lodge accommodation block.

The new creative arts building will support the college’s vision to deliver outstanding and innovative creative arts provision, with three purpose-built floors. As well as providing a vibrant space to stimulate students’ creativity, the building has been designed to be low-carbon.

Dick Palmer, principal of the college, said: “The college is committed to providing 21st Century learning environments for all of our students and this exciting new building will enable us to provide all of our creative arts students with the facilities they need in one place.

Bicton College’s innovative new Environmental and Renewable Technologies Hub (EaRTH) has been officially launched.

The event, which saw nearly 200 people attend, was designed to showcase the new centre, to demonstrate the cutting-edge technologies and to give thanks to all those in the community who have been part of its construction.

There were short talks by the principal of Bicton College, David Henley, and the Head of EaRTH, Graham Waddell, as well as inspiring talk by Juliet Davenport, CEO of south west based Good Energy, and a passionate advocate of sustainable energy technology.

The Hub includes new training bays, solar tubes that let in natural daylight and a biomass boiler. Many of the technologies that keep EaRTH lit, heated, cooled or running are exposed, allowing people to see how they work and to really feel part of this building.

Mr Henley said: “What really struck me tonight was pride – firstly the sense of ownership from the local community who are proud to share this facility with Bicton and secondly is pride of the impressive feat of engineering in an agricultural context that this building demonstrates.”

Students at Great Yarmouth College treated the Prince of Wales to a showcase of vocational skills when he visited their campus.

The Prince even tried his hand at construction skills in the brick workshop and later asked catering and hospitality students if canapes they had designed and created specially for him could be boxed for him to take away.

Principal Penny Wycherley and chair of governors Dr Michael Field greeted the Prince on his arrival at the college’s two-year-old £6m Home of Construction, the Kier Building

Second year Level 2 diploma student Ricky Turner (18) said: “He was surprised by how much cement you need to lay a brick.

“I was a bit nervous, but it was nice to meet him, it’s something different.”

The Prince also saw a 1950s–design speedboat made by young apprentices on the college’s 14-16- programme and stopped to chat to crowds of students and pupils from nearby schools who lined the route to the opposite campus, where he was greeted with singing and dancing by 27 performing arts students.

Mrs Wycherley said: “He was amazed by the sheer variety of the training that happens at the college and how confident and enthusiastic all of the students he met were.