The winner of the Five Star Award for "making a positive contribution" is Sana Awan, who joined the college to take A-levels in biology, chemistry, Urdu and statistics, where she achieved grades AAAB respectively. Sana decided to take a gap year between college and university to act as a volunteer classroom assistant putting her bilingualism to good use by helping students who have recently arrived in the country to improve their English. Her work has been enormously appreciated by students and teachers. There is no doubt that Sana's year helping others will have a very positive effect on the lives of many students who would eventually like to follow in her footsteps. Sana has received unconditional offers from all four medical schools to which she applied; she will be starting her degree studies in October. We wish her well for the future. Warda Al-Jawahiry came to Joseph Chamberlain College four years ago to improve her English. She quickly moved on to GCSEs and then to A-levels in art, media studies and photography. While at the college, Warda beat hundreds of competitors across the country to be chosen to attend a five-day masterclass on the television industry at the Edinburgh International Festival. Not surprisingly, Warda applied to university this year to study fine art & television studies and was particularly keen on the course at the University of Aberystwyth. She decided to take the universityÕs scholarship examination and much to her surprise, did well enough to receive both a prize and an unconditional place. While Warda's progress and achievements, in such a short time, are worthy of high praise, it is all the more outstanding when one considers that she left Iraq with her family in 1991 to live in Libya from where they moved to Romania, before coming to England. Warda has been a most popular student with both teachers and her peers we hope she enjoys the University of Wales as much as we have enjoyed having her at the college. She is a worthy prizewinner in the Five Star Awards category overcoming barriers to meet the challenge. Warda's sister, Noor, was also nominated by the college for a prize at the Five Star Awards. Noor completed her AVCE in information technology last summer and achieved a double A grade, together with a grade B in A-level statistics she will be reading computer science at Warwick University this October. The Five Star Awards can, of course, only recognise the achievements and contributions of a very small number of students. However, the principal, staff and governors of Joseph Chamberlain Sixth Form College would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all of their students for their hard work and commitment. Our college is a small and supportive community where students and teachers know each other well our ethos, based on high expectations and strong pastoral support, has produced exceptional results and an outstanding Ofsted report. It was particularly pleasing that Ofsted said: "The college's response to the needs and interests of students is outstanding". We are naturally delighted that a Birmingham college has achieved inspection grades on a par with the top colleges in England. The year has been a busy one for the college. There have been a number of student visits including an international cricket tournament in Barbados, three visits to France and a visit to Norway. Our cricket team was praised by Sir Garfield Sobers for being the best-conducted team in the Barbados tournament off or on the pitch. Three visits to France were organised for students taking our business studies, performing arts and media studies courses. Business studies and performing arts students participated in study visits to Euro Disney while our media studies students went to Futuroscope in the heart of France. Applications for places at the college for this September are at an all time high and we look forward to an exciting future, continuing to helping many more students to do their very best.
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