Andrea Wilkinson
Winner of the award for outstanding contribution to learning support, Andrea Wilkinson works with school age children who study full time at Wakefield College because it has been inappropriate for them to continue in school.
Many of the children Andrea works with are disaffected and disengaged. Andrea works extremely hard to keep students on the programme by providing counselling, motivation and support. She has been described by colleagues as an exceptional learning mentor.
Andrea states that the most pleasing aspect of her role is knowing that students are aware she genuinely cares about their well being and success.
Andrea proposes to use her STARlight funding to take two groups of learners to a theme park for a day, in order to strengthen links between her old and new places of employment and to gather useful feedback from students about her mentoring procedures in an informal atmosphere. She also proposes to purchase a laptop and satellite navigation system to facilitate home visits which are made as part of her job.