One day, it’s my dream to open up a patisserie and chocolate shop in Australia. I’ve wanted to live there ever since I went with my family a few years ago.

In the past, I have had a job in a food manufacturing, factory-like environment. But I only did this for a short while, because I really didn’t enjoy it that much. Although the workers are looked after well, I don’t like doing the same thing every day. I want to be more creative and use my baking skills to the maximum. I want to learn new things every day and then have the chance to put what I’ve learnt into practice.

At the moment, I’m studying an NVQ Level 1 in Bakery at Tameside College in Manchester. Here we make a variety of bread buns, Continental bread, baguettes, white loaves, brown loaves and croissants. We also make a lot of morning goods and pastries as well as decorate cakes and create chocolate and confectionery items.

After I finish the course, if I don’t get to Australia and open my own shop, then I would love to go into teaching.

I get on really well with my bakery tutors, particularly Lorna Jones. I think that she has a great job, which she enjoys very much, and I think that I’d enjoy teaching too.

I’ve had a number of jobs, but there’s nothing I’d rather do than be a baker. While I’m at college, I also have a job as a shop assistant during the weekend. Recently I was involved in, and won, a California Raisins competition, with two other students in my class. We were so proud.

For a while, we had to stay late every evening in the college to make sure that we had the winning recipes. We also had to undertake practice runs so that we could make our chosen bakery products without any hiccups, as the competition was live.

We are so excited because, as our prize, we won a trip to Switzerland to the Richemont School. It’s an amazing opportunity and we really can’t wait.

What I’m looking forward to the most, is seeing how things are done out there, as I think this will change my style of baking and increase my skills. It will also look fantastic on my CV, when I start applying for bakery jobs, because I will have trained with the prestigious Richemont School, which is thought of as being one of the best in the world.

Before I enter the industry - and take on Australia - I would like to progress on to a

Level 3 NVQ Bakery programme. By that time, I will have had a lot more training and gained more experience. n