Riverside College student returns to education and is named Skills for Life Student of the Year.

Jennifer Stephenson, from Widnes impressed Riverside College tutors on various occasions this year by winning a writing competition, a 100% attendance award and a silver volunteering award. To honour all of these achievements she has just been announced as Skills for Life Student of the Year for 2012.

Jennifer returned to education last year after a change in her personal life and enrolled on a basic maths and English course at Riverside College.

During her time at college she has taken advantage of lots of opportunities.  She entered a college writing competition during world book week and won; she has helped other students as a peer mentor and achieved a silver volunteering award.  All of her hard work paid off last week after Jennifer was presented with the Student of the Year award at the college awards ceremony.

Jennifer said, “I was elated when I heard that I had won the Student of the Year award and the awards evening was a lovely.  I have really enjoyed being at college, as well as helping with academic qualifications the College has a happy and social atmosphere and that helped me to settle in.  I came back to college to start again and I wanted to find a profession.  I am now looking forward to starting the Access to Social Science course at Riverside in September and have already started looking at universities for the year after; as I have decided I would like to work in E-Forensics. I would recommend college to any adult, especially those who have lost faith in looking for a job, to look at education as another option.”

Peter Wood, Head of Adult Education at Riverside College said, “Jennifer has been an excellent student this year. She worked extremely hard in class, and also took on a volunteering role helping other students settle in to courses at the College. We’re all very proud of Jennifer’s achievements and are looking forward to working with her again from September as she progresses to advanced level courses. We have an open evening on Monday 9^thJuly between 4.00pm and 7.30pm and would welcome any adults to come along to find out what opportunities for the future are available to them”.