A SPECIAL awards show celebrating the uniqueness and talents of SEND children took place and was led by young people.

The Multi Schools Council hosted its special awards night in Holland Park Primary School, Holland-on-Sea, and schools and individuals across Essex were invited to represent their areas.

Holland Park was chosen as the venue because it won the Multi Schools Council’s school of the year award in 2021.

Kierran Pearce, director of the Multi Schools Council, laid out how the event was organised.

He said: “The idea of the ceremony came from the children as there are lots of schools in the Multi Schools Council but we wanted to recognise those that engage the most.

“This is through meetings, workshops, ambassadorship and other involvement. Our ambassadors came up with all 14 categories for the awards.

“Schools were invited to send in nominations and our ambassadors looked over them and chose the winners.”

The event opened up with some inspiring speeches from ambassadors, then all the nominations were covered in detail and the winners were given their awards.

Children at the ceremony also had the chance to socialise and refreshments were available.

Some notable speeches include Connell Scholar, one of the older ambassadors who spoke about how important it is for young people’s voices to be heard.

Jonathan Hardington also spoke well about his journey from being a head boy to an ambassador.

However, Kierran highlighted Rosie Newman’s speech as being particularly impressive.

He added: “Rosie joined us during the pandemic and when we first met her she would only say about three or four words because of her confidence level.

“At the ceremony she stood up in front of a crowd and gave a brilliant speech about her confidence level developed which was amazing.”

Ambassadors also helped design the awards with the Multi School Council’s logo, the name of the winner and their school.

Several schools attending held their own assemblies after the ceremony to celebrate their achievements.

For more information on the Multi Schools Council visit multischoolscouncil.org.uk/.