Empower Careers

Milton Keynes College empowers students’ futures by connecting learning to real industry opportunities, giving them hands-on experience, employer exposure, and clear career pathways. 

The College’s recent collaboration with local football team MK Dons is a fantastic demonstration of this. Level 3 Games and Animation students worked on a project to design an animation to accompany MK Dons’ goal celebrations at Stadium MK, featuring the team’s mascots, Mooie and Donnie. 

Hannah Bladen, Head of Community Development at the MK Dons Community Trust, shared her thoughts on the project: “We wanted to take our relationship with MK College one step further with real-life work experience opportunities for students. The student designs were fantastic – they captured the likeness of our real-life mascots Mooie and Donnie, they were in line with the MK Dons brand and they really brought to life the excitement of the goal celebrations at Stadium MK.” 

Games and Animation tutor Gareth Davies said: “When I first saw the students’ animations, it was great and seeing them in the stadium at a live event was even more exciting – the reaction of the live crowd was brilliant. 

“Having an employer come in and set the students a task with certain branding and guidelines and other information that they need to hear is very important and gives them that valuable real-world experience.” 

The students’ designs were showcased at the MK Dons match against Bromley FC in April 2026, with the students and their tutors invited along to see them shown to the crowd at half time.  

“The highlight of the project for me was actually seeing our work in the stadium. It was also nice to have the support of my tutors. They helped me to develop my idea a bit further and they gave me really helpful feedback.” < Peter Andrews > 

 “The skill that I developed during the project was working as a team, and seeing my work on the big screen was amazing.”  <Amelia Gayle-Banton> 

“It felt amazing just to see something I made be on the big screen. It made me feel proud of what I was able to achieve.” <Daniel Ighalo > 

To help empower our students to achieve the careers they want, we will build strong partnerships with industry and employers such as MK Dons to co-create a curriculum that matches real jobs in all priority sectors. The pathways we create will be critical to enable all students to connect their course to their next steps and achieve their positive destination, whilst providing the skills employers need. We will continue to deliver real-world experiences embedded in the curriculum through industry projects and employer partnerships, that prepare students for the world of work.

To find out more about how MK College works with employer partners, visit https://mkcollege.ac.uk/employers/