A group of students from Woodham Academy literally found themselves in the limelight recently when they attended the Northern Echo School Award 2015.
The learners, John Clough, Owen Dickinson, Jessica Beenham and Jennifer Hathaway, were at the Excel Centre in Newton Aycliffe to support their school’s Wildlife Club in the Care and Conservation category, but found themselves unexpectedly in front of the cameras on two other occasions as Woodham Academy scooped the prestigious Innovation and Inspirational Student Awards. As to their own efforts, the youngsters didn’t look too disappointed at having to settle for runner-up; after all it was a tiring day, and there is only so much adoration one can take at one time.
Jessica, John, Owen and Jennifer all had a terrific day. As the doors of the building swished open the four intrepid conservationists were confronted with the spectacle of an enormous, dressed, table and row upon row of elegant glass flutes brimming with sparkling orange juice. For some of the hopefuls the temptation proved to be too much, and they had to be politely asked to go easy by their minder, Mr Heaven; worried as he obviously was by the effect so much glitz, glamour and unadulterated sugar might be having on his young wards, and their precious teeth. Happily, there were numerous other attractions to be had, and a few complimentary apples from the reception served to distract them until the double doors finally swung open to reveal the cavernous interior, decked out as though for a party.
Once inside, the young explorers began immediately adapting to their new environment, rooting around until they had unearthed a host of delicacies, including more orange juice (“Try mixing that with water”) and various items of confectionary (“You might want to take some of them home, and have them later”). Onlookers must have been amazed they found room for the lavish buffet: but they did, and they did themselves and their school proud, and if there had been an award for waste (not-want-not) management then Woodham Academy surely would have been going home with a third gong.
The show itself was excruciating – not because they weren’t impressed by the cutting edge lighting effects, the pitch perfect sound-system pumping out chart topping anthems, or the friendly wit of the presenter, but simply because they were convinced they were going to win and wanted to get to the part where they got to jump up and down and run onto the stage to accept their long-overdue recognition. As things turned out, by the time the youngsters heard the news that they were not to be the recipients of a new trophy for the trophy cabinet, they were probably ready for a rest anyway, as they had by then already accompanied their school’s Assistant Head Mrs Sarah McGinnety and Year 11 student Emma Sandford-Hodgson to the podium to accept their respective awards.
Some of the students were already familiar with the scheme run by Mrs McGinnety, whereby Woodham Academy pupils are mentored by one of six manufacturing/ engineering companies situated on the industrial estate, in order to gain hands on experience of working life; and one of them knew Emma, who, apart from ‘excelling’ at English and Art is also a talented singer, and has recently secured a weekend job singing and dancing for children dressed as Elsa from Frozen.
Emma, who is described by her school as ‘a brilliant student and … a genuinely nice person’ has been giving up her time to mentor younger students, and has overcome numerous obstacles to get where she is. All of the Wildlife Club members were unanimous in their verdict that, in these two categories at least, the awards had been given to the right people.
After a long day the students were happy to travel back to school to tell everyone what they had been up to; yet even here there were new experiences to be had, this time in the form the 60s Jamaican Ska on Mr Heaven’s car stereo. Indeed, so impressed were the orange-fuelled individuals by the scintillating sounds on offer, he had to reluctantly agree to burn them a disk, just to keep them quiet.
