Excellence Awards Celebrated at SERC’s Bangor Campus

Students, staff, friends and family gathered at South Eastern Regional College (SERC) to celebrate the best of the college community, at the annual Excellence Awards for Bangor, Holywood and Newtownards Campuses (3 April).

Guests, including The Mayor of Ards and North Down Borough Council, Councillor Alistair Cathcart, were welcomed with a drinks reception, followed by a short film involving some of the student body celebrating excellence at SERC, before certificates and awards were presented in recognition of outstanding student achievements and staff success.

Awards were presented by Tommy Martin, Principal and Chief Executive at SERC. The College was delighted to have headline sponsorship support from SSE Airtricity, who also supported the category award for Apprentice of the Year. Category awards were also sponsored by Ards and North Down Borough Council for the Entrepreneur of the Year Award; by UK Healthcare  for the Community Champion of the Year; and by ASOS for FE Student of the Year.

Following the presentations, a Vote of Thanks was given by Chris Bruton, SERC Student Governor.

Michael McQuillan, SERC Governing Body and Master of Ceremonies for the evening said, “This evening, we celebrate the success of a number of our students in their courses. But we are also highlighting and rewarding activity in areas such as entrepreneurship, and work with the Students’ Union – all important parts of college life which deliver real-life learning experiences and help our students develop as rounded individuals. We are also here to celebrate staff, both teaching and non-teaching, who support our students to achieve excellence.”

He continued, “We have seen some great achievements since we last gathered for these awards. For example, students have been winners in inter-college and international skills contests, and staff have won accolades in teaching awards programmes, with one lecturer presented with a Great British Businesswoman award for work in engineering.   In addition, SERC projects have been recognised in Good for Me, Good for FE, a UK-wide programme, which highlights work in the community as well as outstanding support services within colleges.

“We are consistently shown to be the highest achieving college in Northern Ireland. In the last academic year, 7,410 students achieving a regulated qualification and we had a 90% achievement rate across the wide range of courses we deliver.”

Michael concluded, “I really am proud to be associated with this college. I congratulate all nominees and award winners on your achievements.”  

SERC would like to thank everyone who made the evening so special, the Awards judging panel, our master of ceremonies and award presenters, the hospitality team, the student engineering team for the engraved trophies and students and staff who took part in the production of the celebration film.