Student of the Year 2011

This years Student of the Year was Azaria Coupe from Tonyrefail School

Student of the Year 2011 nominees

A young scientist from Tonyrefail Comprehensive School has won the prestigious Griffin Mill Rhondda Cynon Taf Student of the Year Award.

Eighteen-year-old Azaria Coupe landed the top prize at a gala dinner event at the Mercure Holland House Hotel in Cardiff, beating 19 other students.

The eighth-annual awards, sponsored by Rhondda Cynon Taf Council Education & Lifelong Learning and Griffin Mill Garages, recognise outstanding achievement in the three fields of educational standard, community involvement and voluntary work.

Each senior school in the County Borough nominates students from Year 13 and all of them were invited to an Outdoor Activity Day in Red Oak Creek in Creigiau in May before progressing to the final award presentation.

Prize-winner Azaria received a Fiat Panda fully funded and insured for their first year courtesy of Griffin Mill Garages. This will assist in her next venture as she is about to leave for Southampton University to study for a Masters Degree in Physics and she hopes to lead a successful career at in High Energy Particle Physics at the CERN Laboratory in Switzerland.

The Tonyrefail-born student is Senior Prefect at the school and is also an accomplished musician, having gained Grade 8 at piano and Grade 3 with the violin. She has been a first violinist in the school orchestra and soprano in the senior school choir for the last seven years and has performed in each of the school's musical productions taking the female lead three times.

Azaria was honoured to be cast as Cosette in the school’s production of Les Miserables, which led to participation in Rhondda Cynon Taf Council’s V Factor and performing 'One Day More' from the show in the Wales Millennium Centre.

In 2008 she performed in the BBC Radio 3 Pianothon and was the pianist for the Rhondda Cynon Taf Jazz Band and joined the Rhondda Cynon Taf Youth Chorus who performed Carl Orff's Carmina Burana in St David's Hall alongside the Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra and the BBC National Chorus of Wales.

Azaria is heavily involved with concerts for the older community of Tonyrefail, particularly the U3A for which she has played the piano, acted and read many poems in their “Poems and Pints” events as well as Christmas concert. She has also raised money for Children in Need, RSPCA and Cancer Research.

Also an extreme sports fan, Azaria has involved herself in many activities including quad biking, climbing obstacle courses, canoeing, kayaking and other test of endurance and skills. Her greatest sporting achievement is climbing Snowdon twice.

There were also three regional winners on the night. Rhondda Regional Winner was Abigail Jones of Tonypandy Community College who is going to Loughborough University to study Sports Management.

The Taff Ely Regional Winner was Pontypridd High School student Bruno Sussat who is studying engineering at Cambridge University and the Regional Winner for the Cynon area was St John The Baptist High School student Meghann Reynolds.

Rhondda Cynon Taf Council Cabinet Member for Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning Cllr Eudine Hanagan said the awards ceremony was a great opportunity to reward outstanding students across Rhondda Cynon Taf.

“'We are very proud of our young people and their achievements. With these awards we can show that students from the South Wales valleys can go out in to the world and excel, and nothing is stopping them. They are all a credit to us — this is only a small section of the wealth of intelligence and talent that we have in Rhondda Cynon Taf.”

As an added surprise at the presentation evening, last year's winner, Amy Mason, was granted an extra term with her Panda as a result of her fantastic video diary which recorded Amy’s year travelling throughout Britain in her treasured ‘Pip’, the name she gave to her Fiat Panda.

Rhondda Cynon Taf Student of the Year Award is supported by a host of other local and national companies such as MediaWales, Broomfield & Alexander, Peugeot Finance, British Car Auctions, L'Oreal, BPW Insurance Services, Red Recruitment, Cameratech, Supagard, Compliancy Services, Dents Plus, South Wales Argus, Fiat motor Company, Total Lubricants, Royal Bank of Scotland.