COLLEGE students have been honoured at an annual awards night.

Derwentside College held its Annual Achievement Awards ceremony last week, honouring 21 of its top performing students for academic excellence and personal endeavour.

More than 250 guests attended the ceremony, presented by Heart Radio North East stars Gary Philipson and Lisa Shaw, including guest of honour Andrew Hodgson, businessman and vice chair of the North East Local Enterprise Partnership.

The evening culminated with the announcement of Student of the Year, presented to Mark Stewart, an advanced apprentice at Pinnacle Re-Tec, based in Consett, for his outstanding achievements throughout his studies.

He said: “I was thrilled to have been nominated for an award, but to win Student of the Year was absolutely fantastic.

“The proudest moment was knowing that my family, my employer and my assessor were there to see this.”

College principal Karen Redhead said: “Our Awards evening is about celebrating success, the success of individuals in achieving their goals by progressing to further and higher education, by securing employment and the success of the college working with employers to raise skill levels and improve quality.

“Success rates on our classroom-based courses are very high, placing us again in the top 10 percent of all colleges in the country for the majority of our programmes and we have maintained this strong position for the last four years”.