PACE winners announced

The winners are as follows: • Innovative Response to Budget Cuts Award – Raj Mandal, Bedford College Services The judges declared Mandal the stand-out winner of this category for his inventive work in ensuring his college becomes more commercially self-funding. • Innovative Teaching & Learning Good Practice Award – James Lui, Westminster Kingsway College Lui triumphed in this contested category, demonstrating his creative approach to engaging learners with new messages in a very lively and imaginative way. • Innovative Learning Materials Award – Kevin Swales, Blackburn College In a category that looks for examples of collateral, web-based facilities and social media that make learning more interesting, Swales' strong entry stood out to the judges for his use of an existing platform that can be adapted and adopted by any college. • Innovative Industry Partnership Award – Peter Higginson & Amanda Nicholson Hirst – The Food Academy, Leed City College They both received this award for their excellent work in promoting a good experience within a corporation. • Innovative Education Partnership Award – Sharon Cooper, Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College and Sukhy Virdee, Belvue School The judges praised the above for their proactive promotion of shared experiences and cross learning between their institutions. Geoff Booth, chief executive, PACE, commented: "The 2012 PACE conference, entitled 'Entrepreneur – Enterprise in our Curriculum', was specifically designed to empower hospitality and catering education and training professionals to respond creatively to the tough economic climate. It offered solutions, guidance, innovation, new perspectives and training to inspire them to think differently and smartly, and be altogether more enterprising in the management and delivery of education. "The worthy winners of this year's PACE Awards are proof that many individuals, teams and institutions are already doing this. All the entries received demonstrate an inbuilt dedication and determination to continue to raise standards and give students the very best training possible, no matter what. This is a fantastic quality of our sector and I whole-heartedly congratulate all of the winners." The event took place at the Hilton Blackpool on 22 March. Over 200 representatives of the hospitality and catering education and training sector, and wider industry, attended the awards dinner.