{"id":188774,"date":"2025-06-16T10:46:24","date_gmt":"2025-06-16T10:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/188774\/"},"modified":"2025-06-16T10:46:24","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T10:46:24","slug":"fe-news-the-sheffield-college-student-awards-celebrate-achievement-and-resilience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/188774\/","title":{"rendered":"FE News | The Sheffield College student awards celebrate achievement and resilience"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Student Khanda Faraj is looking forward to going to university and fulfilling her childhood ambition of becoming a pharmacist.<\/p>\n<p>The 24-year-old is one of the many inspirational learners whose achievements have been recognised at The Sheffield College\u2019s Student Celebration Awards.<\/p>\n<p>Since moving from her home country and settling in Sheffield five years-ago, Khanda has overcome significant challenges including cultural and language barriers.<\/p>\n<p>Khanda said: \u201cComing to the college has given me so much. When I arrived here, I couldn\u2019t speak the language.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow I\u2019ve learnt English, made friends for life, travelled to Bali as part of a college educational trip and improved my confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Khanda attended English classes, completed GCSE maths and English, and studied an Access to Higher Education Diploma in Science, equivalent to A Levels.<strong\/><\/p>\n<p>A winner of the Adult Achievement Award, Khanda has also taken A Level chemistry, and now has offers to study a pharmacy degree at several top universities.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would like to thank my tutors for their support,\u201d <strong>added Khanda.<\/strong> \u201cThey have been so caring when I have faced challenges. My message to others is if I can do it, you can too.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Team GB diver Maisie Bond, 18, who has recently competed in the World Aquatics Diving World Cup and the Aquatics GB Diving Championships, won the Outstanding Achievement Award.<\/p>\n<p>Maisie has been recognised for her strong work ethic with her studies whilst competing on the world stage.<\/p>\n<p>As part of the Team GB World Class Performance Programme, Maisie has won multiple medals including world titles.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s been amazing. The teachers have been brilliant,\u201d<strong> said Maisie, who is completing a Sport Coaching and Development Diploma at Level 3.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI didn\u2019t enjoy education until I joined the college. The way they have supported me has helped me to perform at my sport and get the grades that I need.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI feel really happy to have won this award and proud that I\u2019ve managed to carry on studying and get high grades whilst also competing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Around 200 guests attended the awards ceremony at Sheffield City Hall on 10th June 2025. This year\u2019s winners are:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Adult Achievement Award \u2013 Khanda Faraj<\/li>\n<li>Advanced Vehicle, Engineering and Digital Technologies Student of the Year \u2013 Victoria Slodczyk<\/li>\n<li>Arts and Creative Industries Student of the Year sponsored by Visionmix Productions \u2013 Darci Cooper<\/li>\n<li>Bloom: Preparation for Adulthood Student of the Year sponsored by Teaching WalkThrus \u2013 Brandan Gray<\/li>\n<li>Building Technologies Student of the Year \u2013 Jacob Osborne<\/li>\n<li>Employer Skills Academy Recognition Award sponsored by Force Contracts Ltd \u2013 Charlie Stoddart<\/li>\n<li>English, Maths and ESOL Student of the Year \u2013 Mbaroro Katjiteo<\/li>\n<li>Events, Hospitality and Food Technology Student of the Year \u2013 Courtney Owen<\/li>\n<li>Fitness and Life Sciences Student of the Year \u2013 Brad Hill<\/li>\n<li>FREDIE+ Champion sponsored by Kitlocker \u2013 Liss Gregory<\/li>\n<li>Health, Care and Health Technologies Student of the Year \u2013 Emmanuel Luteke<\/li>\n<li>Outstanding Achievement Award sponsored by Teaching WalkThrus \u2013 Maisie Bond<\/li>\n<li>Pre-technical Skills Student of the Year \u2013 Lois Bruce<\/li>\n<li>Professional Studies Student of the Year sponsored by Mindful Education \u2013 Benny Le<\/li>\n<li>Service Industries Student of the Year \u2013 Holly Smith<\/li>\n<li>The Sheffield Sixth Form Student of the Year \u2013 Hollie Booth<\/li>\n<li>Sustainability Champion sponsored by SS4FE \u2013 Diya Kumar<\/li>\n<li>T Level Student of the Year sponsored by Think Pacific \u2013 Rahima Smikil<\/li>\n<li>UC Sheffield Student of the Year \u2013 Amelia Warren<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Darci Cooper, 18, who runs a British Sign Language Society at the college, won the Arts and Creative Industries Student of the Year award.<\/p>\n<p>Darci has been hailed for his creative film making talent and being one of the most enthusiastic students that the curriculum team has ever taught.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Darci said:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I found out that I\u2019d been nominated, I felt really shocked. I\u2019ve loved all of the course. Film making is my dream job.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Victoria Slodczyk, 17, who is one of the first students at the college to complete T Levels, won the Advanced Vehicle, Engineering and Digital Technologies Student of the Year category.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI feel really happy about winning this award,\u201d <strong>said Victoria, who is completing a T Level in Mechanical Engineering and aims to go onto a degree apprenticeship.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll the hard work that I have put in has paid off. If you know what you want to do as a topic and career, I would really recommend T Levels,\u201d <strong>added Victoria.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Higher education student Amelia Warren, 22, who is completing an NCTJ Diploma in Journalism at Level 5, triumphed as UC Sheffield Student of the Year.<\/p>\n<p>Amelia has been hailed as \u2018one to watch\u2019 by industry experts and has had work experience offers from the BBC and Sky Sports New.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Amelia said: <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt feels really special and quite surreal. I am much more confident and I\u2019ve got the college to thank for that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Angela Foulkes CBE, Chief Executive and Principal, The Sheffield College, commented<\/strong>: <\/p>\n<p>\u201cHuge congratulations to our incredible winners and nominees.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s an amazing achievement to be recognised in this way given the size of our student community and a privilege to see the contribution that our staff have made transforming lives.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The guest speakers included Jacob Osborne, who won the Building Technologies Student of the Year award, and alumnus Harriet Massey who works as a sports photographer at Newcastle United Football Club.<\/p>\n<p>Harriet studied at the college for five years and completed a diploma before achieving a first class honours photography degree.<\/p>\n<p>Her job has taken her to Tokyo for a pre-season tour and to Wembley earlier this season for the club\u2019s first major trophy win in 70 years. Prior to joining Newcastle United, Harriet worked for Sheffield Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Student Khanda Faraj is looking forward to going to university and fulfilling her childhood ambition of becoming a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8817],"tags":[14010,748,393,4884,1620,34283,34282,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-188774","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sheffield","8":"tag-awards","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-sheffield","13":"tag-sheffield-college","14":"tag-the-sheffield-college","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114692646379781876","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}