29th June 2016
Students from across the Borough have been honoured at the Technical Skills Academy Annual Awards. The winners were selected from hundreds of students to receive awards for their achievements. Over 80 friends, family, and VIPs gathered to support the successful students. During the event, awards were presented for each subject area.
In addition, two coveted Technical Skills Academy ‘Extra’ Awards were also given out on the night. These recognised those students who have shown not only excellent attendance, work ethic and attitude, but also something 'extra' in the college or wider community.
This year’s ‘Extra’ winners were Hafsa Kalia, 19, from Dagenham, an IT student (pictured fourth from the right). In her first year she was elected as the NUS site rep for the Academy, and this year was elected as the first NUS President for Barking & Dagenham College to be based at the Academy. She combines a great deal of proactive work to get students together, enabling their voice to be heard across the campuses with campaigns and special events, all alongside her GCSE, her IT course and her student ambassador work.
Hafsa will be the first in her family to go to University; she will study Computer Science at Queen Mary University in the autumn.
The second worthy winner, Max Hayman, 17, from Tower Hamlets (pictured third from the right) came to the College two years ago and has successfully completed both his multi skills construction course and his plumbing course, and has gained an Apprenticeship in plumbing, too.
He works tirelessly for charity, including raising funds for Help for Heroes by competing in the 'Tough Mudder' course (which involves carrying a team member, so they could complete the course if they became injured); his community involvement also led him to win a Jack Petchey Award at the College, to add to one he won at his school.
The Academy is a unique learning facility which is a partnership between Barking & Dagenham College and the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. Head of the Technical Skills Academy at Barking & Dagenham College, Hilary Moore commented:
“Our annual awards event is a great way of being able to celebrate all the hard work our students have put in over the year. They deserve to be honoured in this way, and it was a pleasure to be able to spend the awards evening with them and their friends and family.”
