On Wednesday 21st June, St Vincent’s Centre, Belfast will be holding its annual Celebration of Success ceremony, to recognise the efforts and attainments of its pupils. St Vincent’s is a centre for pupils with a statement of special educational needs for social, behavioural, emotional and wellbeing difficulties. The award ceremony is always a brilliant opportunity to help amazing young people develop ambition by realising that success and achievement are attainable and can be a part of their lives moving forward. So many young people arrive not believing this to be the case. This year, the Celebration of Success will be an extra special one. This year, along with current pupils, they are celebrating a wonderful past pupil; Pearse Doherty from Ardoyne.
In June last year, as a year 12 pupil, Pearce was completing his Prince’s Trust Achieve Programme. For children like Pearse, it allows them to come in at their own level, work at their own speed and shows them that success is not beyond their reach. It helps them to develop life skills and instils the belief that they do have a bright future ahead of them. Pearse engaged fully in all learning activities and excelled in this and all his qualifications. He has used many difficult life experiences to motivate himself to try harder and become better. His powerful resilience and determination has shone through. He left St Vincent’s at the end of year 12 with the equivalent of 8 GCSEs grade A*-C. All at St Vincent’s are immensely proud of him and agree it has been a huge honour to have had the opportunity to play a small role in Pearce’s journey.
Presently Pearse is training to be a youth worker with Springboard and works as a youth leader in his own community at Ardoyne YC. He hopes to do a degree in youth work and wants to inspire and support young people in his community.
As a result of this, Ciara Courtney from the Prince’s Trust and Brenda McMenamin, Prince’s Trust Tutor at St Vincent’s Centre decided to nominate Pearse for the Prince’s Trust and TK Maxx Ascential Education Award. In February 2023, at an award ceremony in Weaver’s Court hosted by Pete Snodden and Kirsty McMurray from Cool FM, Pearse was declared the NI Regional Ascential Education Award Winner. On 16 May 2023, at a star-studded award ceremony hosted by Ant and Dec at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane London, Pearse was announced the National Ascential Education Award winner. His award was presented by actors Tom Davies and Jaime Winstone and Duncan Painter, Chief Executive Officer of Ascential. On the 17 May Pearse was taken to Buckingham Palace to meet King Charles.
Congratulations to Pearse and all the winners on the night!