Awards evening celebrates wonderful students and their incredible achievements

Outstanding and inspirational students from New City College were recognised at a fabulous Student Achievement Awards ceremony on Wednesday.

Former student Charles Babalola, now an actor on stage and screen, was the special guest at the presentation which was held at the Leonardo Royal London City hotel and streamed live through the NCC website.

The celebratory evening paid tribute to excellence, hard work and determination, honouring those who had achieved beyond expectation and often despite adversity.

The 350 guests – and almost 750 who watched online – were treated to an evening of entertainment, inspiring stories, video messages from alumni and teachers and motivational speeches with the uplifting themes of ‘be yourself’ and ‘be proud of who you are’.

Heart-felt testimonials to the winning students told of resilience and dedication, endeavour and commitment, engaging the audience with tales of journeys by some who had started at the bottom but had climbed to the top with an unwavering determination to succeed.

Charles Babalola, a former drama student at Havering College, Ardleigh Green, best known for his roles in Netflix show Black Mirror, box-office hit The Legend of Tarzan and the latest horror/fantasy movie Gretel and Hansel, gave an inspirational talk and then presented trophies to the winning students. A second guest speaker, former Tower Hamlets college student John Akinde, recited a thought-provoking and powerful poem he had written titled, Be.

Performing Arts students gave two amazing performances, first to a medley of songs from The Greatest Showman and then, to end the ceremony, a rocking dance routine to a selection of Queen hits.

The Awards hosts were current students Nya Tomlin and Kian Crowley, who were charming and confident, with NCC Principals Alison Arnaud, Janet Smith and Narzny Khan reading out the testimonials.

Before the ceremony began the winning students, their guests, VIPs and sponsors were welcomed to a food and drinks reception and were entertained with magic and mind-reading by former Havering Sixth Form student and now professional magician, Jake Banfield.

Sponsors of the event were the Learning Curve Group, Aramark, Marick, Blue Sky Systems, IDXtra, Canary Wharf Group PLC, the University of East London, CPL Group, Printville, Printech, KGB Southwest, and Phoenix.

The whole evening was a real New City College collaboration between students and staff who, behind the scenes, had supported the organisation of the event, going above and beyond to ensure it was such a success. Everything that was seen or heard on the night – the music, the films, the design, videography, the live stream, the dancers’ costumes, had been created or produced by students and staff.

CEO and Group Principal Gerry McDonald said: “We have been impressed and inspired by our wonderful students tonight. We are immensely proud of all of them. Many will be moving or have moved on to new chapters in their lives and we wish them every success in their next steps. I want to pay tribute to my teaching and support staff colleagues who have helped them to reach such high standards of progress and achievement.”

English Speaking Board (ESB) Product Development Manager, Anthea Wilson, who was a guest, said: “I was honoured to celebrate the achievements of these exceptional learners. It was fantastic to see so many inspiring young people being recognised for overcoming challenges through their hard work and resilience. Congratulations to all the learners, but especially to the ESB ESOL learners!”

Many guests commented on the fabulous event saying it was wonderful to be a part of such an inspiring evening. One said: “I very much enjoyed being here and seeing these young people, who are our future, collecting well-deserved awards for their achievements. The presentation has reflected the quality of the students and the excellent curriculum and opportunities available to them at NCC.”

To view or download all the photos from the event please click here

To watch the live stream of the event, see here

The winning students were:

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