Weston student wins national education award

Weston College student, Jordan Tucker, has won Outstanding IT Student of the Year at the National BTEC Awards.

The event, which celebrates achievement in the country’s most widely taken vocational qualification, was held at the Royal Horticultural Halls in London on Thursday 7th July 2016.

The awards recognise the nearly one million students around the country who are studying BTEC qualifications this year. Pearson, who own BTECs, received nearly 1,000 nominations across the 19 award categories for this year’s awards.

Now in their sixth year, the awards were hosted by Radio 1 Presenter Gemma Cairney and attendees by the winners, their families and teachers as well as stakeholders from the education and business worlds. Dragon’s Den judge, and BTEC champion, Peter Jones also presented the award for Business and Enterprise Student of the Year via video link.

Ahead of the awards ceremony, the winners, their family, friends and nominators attended a Parliamentary reception in the House of Commons.

Jordan is an inspiring student who despite joining the College with very little computing experience, quickly rose to the challenge and thrived in the vocational environment.

During the first year of his course, Jordan competed in the World Skills Regional Finals in Website Design and was awarded first place.

As a result he is now training as part of the World Skills UK Squad for the chance compete in the international competition in Abu Dhabi in 2017.

In addition to competing, Jordan has also undertaken work experience with a networking company to gain industry insight and works with other students on extra-curricular projects.

After completing his BTEC, Jordan intends to read Computer Science at the University of Exeter.

Jordan said: “I never imagined I would be considered for such an award. It has truly been an honour and will be a day I never forget.”

Rod Bristow, President of Pearson in the UK, said: “BTEC is a high quality and demanding qualification with those in possession increasingly sought after by universities and employers.

“This year’s judges were impressed by the quality and number of nominations we received but Jordan really stood out as a truly exceptional student and deserves a huge congratulations”.