Grants to help Teesdale students through further studies

TALENTED Teesdale students have been given money to help with their education.

Teesdale School and Sixth Form has announced the winners of the Mewhort Scholarship for 2017.

The scholarship exclusive to sixth form students at the school who have achieved academic excellence and made a “valuable contribution to the life of the school and wider community”.

Ella Blackburn was awarded the top prize of £1,500 for each year of her undergraduate study.

Ella’s academic excellence was confirmed by her A*s in English literature and history and A in French.

She is moving on to read history at St Catharine’s College Cambridge. The Mewhort trustees said they were impressed with her passion for the subject and the ways she has engaged with it during her time at the school.

Sam Holmes, Katherine Harding, Kyle Ritchie and Alex Jeffries were each awarded £1,000 per year of undergraduate study.

Sam’s “impressive” sciences and maths ability shone through in his interview as did Alex’s passion for improving farming and helping her local community.

“Katherine has had a real impact throughout her time at the school helping younger students to achieve their goals and improve their confidence through performing arts

while Kyle looks forward to a year of study in Spain as part of his combined honours degree,” a school spokesman said.

Wendy Greenfield, chairwoman of the Mewhort Trustees, added: “It is fantastic that the scholarships continue to reward the academic excellence of students in the sixth form and give them some financial help to go

further and achieve even more.”

Another group of Mewhort Scholars graduated this year with first class honours degrees – Sarah Bedwell in architecture and Jack Holguin who is now pursuing a physics PhD thesis on dark matter.