City and Islington College student awarded Outstanding Academic Achievement prize

Now in its 13th year, the national Keith Fletcher Memorial Prize has long been synonymous with honouring the outstanding achievements of Access to HE students.

OCN London approved Centre, City and Islington College (CANDI), part of the Capital City College group, were delighted to learn this week, that one of their Access to HE students, Vlad Starchenko has been awarded this year for commitment to his studies in achievement of his Level 3 Diploma in Engineering.

The prize is named in memory of Keith Fletcher, who worked for many years in the South West of England and was a great supporter and enthusiast of adult learning. His family continues to support this award which is run by all nine Access Validating Agencies (AVAs) across England and Wales.

Sam Turpin, Head of Curriculum – Access and HE, at CANDI, whose team taught and supported Vlad to achieve the Engineering Diploma, was overjoyed at the announcement earlier this week, he said;

On behalf of Vlad’s lecturing team, I would like to say how proud we are that he has won the Outstanding Academic Achievement category of the Keith Fletcher Prize. Vlad is an exceptionally talented and hard-working learner, and the only challenge we had when nominating him was to try and decide which of his excellent pieces of work to put forward.

Vlad’s achievement is made all the more impressive in that he had only recently left Ukraine due to the war when he joined us and had to adapt to a new country whilst taking his English GCSE alongside his Diploma and working to support his studies. Despite this he excelled in every subject, and throughout his time at City and Islington he was a very sociable and generous class member, who always helped his peers when they were struggling. He was also incredibly inquisitive and often asked for material that went beyond the scope of the course, which made him an absolute pleasure to teach. Well done Vlad, very well deserved!

Vlad was also awarded OCN London’s Michael Sargant Bursary award last year in recognition of his dedication and hard work during his studies. He has now progressed to studying Games Programming at Ravensbourne University London.

The successful candidates will be invited to a special presentation event later this year, at the House of Commons. 

Each of the successful candidates will receive a certificate and cheque to help them with their future study; winners in each category will receive £750 and the runner-up £350.

If you would like to find out more about delivering our Access to HE Diploma suite, please get in touch with Michelle Wood at michelle@ocnlondon.org.uk and visit our website for more details about the Access to HE https://ocnlondon.org.uk/access-to-he/