Teaching students scoop £10k scholarship awards
The passion and legacy of a Wearside business boss and education champion is being kept alive by two young Sunderland women.
Primary education student Lauren Ord, 25, and mathematic education student Zoe Morrison, 23, are the winners of this year’s Sir Tom Cowie Excellence Scholarship Award at the University
of Sunderland – each receiving £10,000 to support them in their final year.
Entrepreneur, garage boss and former Sunderland AFC chairman Sir Tom, who died in 2012, aged 89, was a long-term supporter of the university and believed passionately in giving people with talent, regardless of background, the opportunity to enter higher education.
The Sir Tom Cowie Excellence Scholarship Award was set up to support students from the Sunderland area achieve their full potential.
Lauren, from Sunderland, discovered her passion for teaching while travelling in Thailand where she volunteered in a school teaching English.
She said: “I knew then that this was what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, and I came home to Sunderland to study teaching.”
To make ends meet Lauren worked as a swimming teacher, gym instructor and a sales consultant.
She said: “The money from the scholarship means I get to focus on my academic work and placements.”
Zoe, from Seaham, said: “I was working 16 hours a week part-time until the week after being awarded the Sir Tom Cowie Award.”
“I am hoping to get a job as a maths teacher for when I graduate, hopefully in a school with a strong special educational needs and disability (SEND) provision.
“I’ve been on placement in SEND schools and have thoroughly enjoyed them and found them extremely rewarding.”
Both Lauren and Zoe are studying at the university’s faculty of education and society, and will graduate in the summer.
Prof Lynne McKenna, Dean of the faculty, said: “Both Lauren and Zoe are worthy recipients of the scholarship having achieved the highest standards.
“The future of teaching is going to be in safe hands with students like Lauren and Zoe entering the profession.”