Despite facing the challenges of ill health, Aimee Glaze has excelled in her studies and has been named Public Services Student of the Year.

The 18-year-old from Basildon has stood out in her studies for her behaviour, standard of achievement and motivation to succeed.

Her tutors have recognised how much Aimee has progressed over the course of her two year programme. After her first year of study, it was unclear whether she would be able to progress on to the second year of her course, however, Aimee was determined to succeed and went above and beyond to accomplish her goals and is achieving distinction level grades in her assignments.

Her nomination citation noted: “Aimee is an outstanding student who uses her mature reflective skills to complete all assignments before deadlines to an outstanding level. 

“Aimee also supports other members of her class and discusses class issues with her personal tutor in a mature and balanced manner in order to achieve the best outcome.

“Seeing Aimee develop academically and personally into a mature, committed and outstanding student should be something to be rewarded.”

Aimee said she was ‘incredibly proud’ of her achievements.

She said: “This year I have faced a lot of challenges but I put endless amounts of effort into my college life and my assignments. I put all my energy into this year so I could come out with the best possible outcomes. 

“The support at the college has been second-to-none. The staff here always go above and beyond especially the wellbeing team. They have helped me so much throughout my time here, they helped me gain my confidence and walked me through my hard days when my illness was getting too much to handle. 

My lecturers are always working hard to accommodate for all of their students and you can easily see how passionate they are about their job which makes learning so much more enjoyable.”

Aimee is now pursing her dream of becoming a prison officer.