AN awards night celebrated students flying high at school and beyond - including one sixth former securing a $250,000 scholarship to study in the US.

Ulverston Victoria High School staged its annual Senior Prizegiving at the end of December. The packed-out occasion at the Coronation Hall saw the previous GCSE, AS and A-Level students receive certificates and awards.

With the theme “And They Flew…” - from Christopher Logue’s poem, Come To The Edge , UVHS headteacher, Denis Fay, said in order to prepare students for the future, a school should not just focus on results and what is going on in lessons, but must also ensure that there is ample, high-quality extra-curricular provision throughout all curriculum areas that all students can access. Mr Fay said UVHS offers such provision with several areas recognised at both a national and international level for the quality of their work, such as music and PE, as well as additional volunteering opportunities, both within the community and abroad.

The headteacher said by developing UVHS as the centre of the community, students are given every opportunity to be able to mould their own futures, no matter how diverse, through an environment of mutual respect, care and nurture.

Present and former students gave presentations on what they are doing to help them fly. Will Gilroy won a Sutton Trust award and went to Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the summer to see the further maths degree courses and work alongside some of the finest brains in the USA. He has also just heard from the Sutton Trust that he has won a $250,000 scholarship to go and study for a maths degree in the States for the next three years.

Hannah Diaper told of her experiences working at Siemens on its internship programme over the summer and, as a result, receiving a coveted Gold Crest Award for engineering which was then presented to her by Mike Jeshke from Siemens.

Grace spoke about her travels and experiences as part of the Model United Nations - where she was the chairwoman of the conference in Ireland.

Three former students spoke about the decisions they made last year to launch their careers. Former headgirl, Georgia Howard, has just completed her first term at Leeds University studying biology with Enterprise, and both Catherine Steur and Jasmine McKenna are on higher apprenticeship courses with J.F.Hornby and BAE respectively.

The guest speaker was Graham Wilkinson, principal and chief executive of Kendal College. Mr Wilkinson extended the theme of And They Flew… with an address detailing the roundabout route he took getting into education – starting out as a trainee chef, working around Europe in top hotels, before ending up as the royal chef at Buckingham Palace. His informative message to all the students present was that they should not be afraid of tackling new challenges head-on and that they should embrace the wide range of opportunities ahead of them.