ALTON College has hosted the inaugural Second Year Student Awards ceremony, with 16 students receiving recognition for excellence in their chosen subjects of creative visual arts, engineering and maths.

Introduced by the Alton College Foundation to celebrate students who had shown outstanding achievements within their subjects, the ceremony incorporated two other annual awards – the FB Design and Detail Award and the Mason Memorial Award.

Trevor Heley, managing director of the Foundation, opened the ceremony by welcoming students, parents, sponsors, college staff and Foundation directors.

The second year creative visual art awards were then presented to Emily Barnett (textiles) and Emily Luke (art and design). Sophie Spearing (textiles) was unable to attend.

Mike Baker, director of the Alton College Foundation, presented the Design and Technology Product Investigation Award to Paul Carter and Julia Lane.

The Level 2 Engineering Skills Award went to Aaron Grimshaw and Thomas Morton, who was unable to attend, as were Aaron Longman and Ronnie Waite who were to receive the Level 3 Engineering Skills Award.

Nicholas Branch, chairman of the Alton College Foundation, presented the FB Design Prize for Design and Detail to Elisha Pritchard. Cameron Copeland, joint winner of the award, is now at university and was unable to attend.

Christine Westcott, sponsor of the Mason Memorial Prize, presented the runner-up awards to Dr and Mrs Harsham, who accepted the award on behalf of their son Max Harsham for his cricket bat storage, and to Jamie MacDonald, for his Handy Standy. James Fryer, the winner of the award, was unable to attend on the evening but was congratulated by Mrs Westcott.

Merula Frankel, director of the Alton College Foundation, presented the Mathematics Awards to Oliver Gunner and Rebekah Aspinwall, who achieved the highest scores in their recent AS maths and AS further maths exams.

The presentation evening was brought to a close by Sara Russell, principal of Alton College, who praised the outstanding quality of all the award winners and urged them to seize this and future opportunities to enrich and enhance their learning.