Hair & Beauty
Starlights Salon
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Opened in September 2006 by Richard Roberts from Schwarzkopf, the Starlights Salon at Bicester Community College offers students from five local schools the opportunity to achieve Level 1 and Level 2 in hairdressing. The salon contains fifteen work stations, four basins and specialist electrical equipment such as salon hairdryers and straighteners. Students from Bicester Community College, the Cooper School, Gosford Hill School, Lord William School, Wheatley Park School and the John Watson School are taught the hairdressing skills essential to achieve Level 1 (shampooing and styling) and Level 2 (cutting, styling, colouring, perming). In this way the sixth formers who achieve their Level 2 are qualified to work in a hairdressing salon as a junior stylist (under supervision).
The hairdressing salon used to be an old (and unused) classroom, but thanks to a grant from the 14-19 Partnership budget, Bicester Community College was able to revamp the dilapidated old classroom in to a state of the art salon worthy of any high street. The Starlights Salon and the courses are run by Tutor Gill Joy together with Mie McLaughlin (from Oxford and Cherwell Valley College) and Kate Hubbocks. Together they ensure that their students are best prepared for hairdressing life and as well as hairdressing skills focus on presentation, working as part of a team and most importantly customer care.
With this in mind the Starlights Salon operates as a salon for three days every week: Monday 3 – 6pm, Wednesday 1- 4pm and Thursday 3 – 6pm and is open to the general public for their hairdressing needs. There is an extensive range of hairdressing services available: cutting and styling, conditioning, perming and colouring. The Salon uses professional hairdressing products for all its work and many of the staff students and their families and friends enjoy professional hairstyling at significantly reduced prices.
The students at the Starlights Salon actively support College events and most recently styled the hair and hair pieces for the College’s production of ‘Les Miserables’. To keep abreast with new hair fashion trends Gill Joy has established strong partnerships with salons in the commercial sector who often visit the Salon to share their expertise with the Starlights’ students.
In September 2008 the Starlights Salon received the welcome news that Bicester Community College has been given a grant from its 14 – 19 Partnership to add a Beauty Salon to the Salon. The College can now lead the new Diploma in Hair and Beauty within the partnership of schools and is hoping to be able to offer this Diploma from September 2009.
