FORMER Pewsey Vale School pupil Kim Flippance, a church minister in the Salisbury Diocese, returned to spend a day at her old school and present the prizes at the annual speech day on Tuesday November 28.

The Rev Miss Flippance was in her final year at the school in 1980 when the present head teacher Judith Plante-Cleall arrived.

Miss Flippance went into nursing after leaving school and then trained as a midwife, before training for the ministry.

Miss Flippance, whose parents and grandparents live in Pewsey, spent the day in school sitting in on lessons.

Mrs Plante-Cleall said the teaching of pupils at desks with a teacher at the front of the class remained the solid bedrock on which teaching and learning is based. "But our pupils find themselves being stimulated in a whole range of different milieu. Teachers organise school journeys, exchanges, outside speakers, and work in the community."

The headteacher singled out the art and science groups for special praise.

She said: "The entire Year 11 were entered for a double science award and without exception each pupil achieved two science passes. No-one received the lowest pass grade.

"In only four Wiltshire schools did 100 per cent of pupils gain five or more passes A to G. Pewsey was one of these schools.

"Of the other three one was a selective grammar and the other two are independent schools,"she said.

New awards included one in memory of the former village police sergeant, the late Jon Laughrin, which went to Year 9 student Gemma Hatchard-Liddle for effort. The Ben Rabha Salver for excellence in modern languages went to Jenna Oliphant; the Rushton Soccer School award for sport went to Jonathan Gregory and the Griffin Shield for performing arts was presented to Christina Cranson.