FENLAND: Tea lady Toni is top of the class and singled out for special praise in awards

A TEA lady at Fenland District Council has won a special award for her outstanding achievements in developing her "skills for life".

Toni Morley, from March, was one of 40 council staff presented with a range of adult learning and National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) certificates.

Toni was singled out for particular praise. Over the past year she has gained national certificates equivalent to GCSEs in literacy and numeracy and has just completed an NVQ in customer service.

Now she is seeking to upgrade her numeracy qualification - and she doesn't intend to stop there.

"I just want to keep going," she said. "It's going to help give me a lot more opportunities."

Presenting her with the special award and a bottle of champagne, Glenn Forbes of F1 Training, which provide the courses, said: "Her effort and enthusiasm has been clear to see. She has attended virtually every skills for life workshop and often makes me stay behind so she can have extra help."

He praised council staff for the "amazing" results they had achieved in a range of subjects, including customer service, IT, management and health and safety.

"You are achieving at rates way above the regional and national average," he said. "The success rates for enrolments through the Government's Train to Gain scheme stand at 60.9 per cent for the East of England and at 64.1 per cent nationally.

"You have blown that rate out of the water with a 97 per cent success rate, which is absolutely amazing."

Council Leader Geoffrey Harper, said: "We do everything we can to encourage our staff to gain new skills. These tremendous results reflect that commitment."

"Over the past 18 months, 252 staff have enrolled on courses provided by F1 Training and learndirect Business and 136 have already gained new qualifications.