Two talented computer whizzes from Shropshire’s Derwen College competed at the national IT Challenge in Ipswich last week.
Students Jamie Bullock and Ben Moore-Hill represented the specialist further education college near Oswestry in the three-day ShawTrust UK IT Challenge.
The event saw more than 50 competitors with learning difficulties and disabilities take on a variety of IT challenges to testability, creativity and skill using different computer programmes.
Challenges included designing a poster in PowerPoint, retrieving specific information from the internet and showing off abilities in Excel.
Jamie and Ben were a credit to the college, receiving certificates and medals for their knowledge and hard work. Jamie was also awarded with a Kindle Fire for his excellent public speaking and willingness to ask searching questions.
Student Jamie Bullock said: “I enjoyed the IT Challenge. Some of the challenges were rather hard but I enjoyed it and learnt a lot. We learnt about programming Bots and met Olympic athlete Mitchell Camp. I won the Best Public Speaker for talking about how important it is to support peers with IT, and for asking lots of questions to the interesting speakers.”
Derwen College staff Zoe Wood and Emma Dodd from accompanied the students on the three-day challenge.
Zoe Wood said: “Jamie and Ben worked extremely hard at the IT Challenge in Ipswich. They were both amazing and represented the college really well. We are incredibly proud of their achievements.”
About Derwen College
Derwen College, in Gobowen, Shropshire, is a specialist college for young adults with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The college offers students the opportunity to learn new skills in real work environments and to learn life skills which will enable them to live as independently as possible. The college has received three consecutive ‘outstanding’ Ofsted gradings.
For more information go to www.derwen.ac.uk
