Last Thursday, staff and students came together to celebrate the school’s highest achieving students, from KS3, KS4 and KS5. The evening began with refreshments in which staff and students had the opportunity to intermingle with each other. The school was honoured to have a guest speaker Mr Martin Sullivan who was a student of South East London Technical School, which later amalgamated to be part of Sydney Russell in 1990. Mr Sullivan is a successful business man who now lives in America. He is the benefactor of many charities and has been awarded an OBE for his charitable work.   All of our top students were invited to attend the awards ceremony as a well done for their success in exams. One Year 8 Student states how she felt “that it was great that the school were doing this for their students and rewarding children for all their hard work can really work well to motivate students and ensure that they are always working to their full potential.” The evening featured a range of music performances from talented students including a piano performance by Billy, a singing performance by Gabriella and a violin performance piece played by Rejus. The night also included a choir performance by the staff, this acted as a symbol of appreciation towards the children for doing all they can to do well in their exams. The highest achieving students who sat exams in the 2017, were rewarded with a plaque at the front of the school in order to honour their hard work and achievements. From each year group, a single student was selected as the ‘Aspens Student of the Year’; this was based on, not only their outstanding results but how they conducted themselves around the school and participated in other extra-curricular activities. These exceptional students will form a committee where they will decide how money given to the school, courtesy of Aspens, will be spent in a way that is beneficial to both the school and students.   All in all, it was an amazing night filled with joy and celebration. Well done to all the students who won an award last week.