SIXTEEN engineering students at a Sheerness firm won praise for their skills and knowledge at a presentation evening.

The students, who had all completed a 24-week course at Weidmuller, were handed certificates by the Mayor of Swale, Cllr Brenda Simpson, at the firm's Power Station Road premises.

Certificates went to Mark Burchett, Jamie Chopping, Richard Cruise, Thomas Ford, Tom Fox, Chris Friedman, James Gardner, Anthony Gunther, Alistair Hunt, Sean Hartnell, Nathan Lay, Andrew Manning, John Scully, Justin Smith, Darren Standish and Dean Taylor.

Student of the year was James Gardner as, in the opinion of instructors, he had made the most improvement over the period of the course.

He was presented with a special award by Steven Hadlow, general manager of Weidmuller Interface, Sheerness.

Weidmuller started the engineering course 14 years ago because a lack of metalwork classes at local schools made it difficult for the firm to recruit suitable apprentices.

Since then, the firm has employed many apprentices as a direct result of the annual course.