A HURWORTH teenager is the envy of his school friends after he picked up a top award for young scientists.

Adrian Robinson, 14, of Hurworth Comprehensive School, entered the Spotlight Scientist of the Year Awards, run by school publisher Stanley Thornes.

Adrian had been studying a module on space as part of his key stage three studies.

For the competition, he decided to investigate sunspots and used his father's telescope to project images of the sun on to a large sheet of paper.

He drew the sun and its sunspots and showed his class, with a sequence of drawings, how they rotate on the sun's surface. He used the sun's dimensions to calculate the size of the sunspots.

Competition judges awarded Adrian a Spotlight Scientist of the Year Award - one of a handful given out nationally from more than 1,500 entries. He received a certificate and his school was awarded a year's free membership of the Association for Science and Education.

His science teacher John Morris said: "He has shown that he has the qualities needed to go in and do very well in the field of science and more specifically astronomy."