HSLC student Lily Wilson, 18, has been crowned UK and Ireland Photoshop Champion beating more than 5,000 other national competitors. She will now travel to Orlando in the USA to compete against competitors from 62 other countries in the Adobe Certified Associate (ACA) World Championship finals.
Three HSLC students, Lily Wilson, Tom Nursey and Will Cowern were amongst the nation’s top 20 highest scoring students in the Adobe Photoshop ACA examinations, a result which qualified them to participate in the ACA UK Championships which took place at Adobe’s UK headquarters in Maidenhead last week.
The event saw finalists compete in a real-world design challenge where they were tasked with designing a poster for the charity SportsAble using the Adobe Creative Cloud software.
By producing the winning poster Lily has won an all-expenses-paid trip to Florida where she will represent the UK and Ireland in the finals of the ACA World Championship which take place in Orlando in August.
After winning the award Lily said: “The Adobe Certified Associate UK and Ireland Final had a wonderful friendly atmosphere that gave me the opportunity to experience working to a real client’s brief, which is something I would like to pursue as a career in the future. I am also excited and proud to have been awarded the opportunity to represent the UK and Ireland in the World Championship in Orlando in August.”
HSLC was the only North of England representative at the UK finals and the only secondary school competing at the event in the company of some of the country’s top Universities. HSLC was also one of only two institutions represented by three finalists; last year’s winners the University of Westminster being the other.
The ACA World Championship is presented by Certiport, Inc. and is a global competition that tests student’s design skills using Adobe Photoshop. Andrew Lenehan, Regional Account Manager on behalf of Certiport said:
“This is a fantastic result not only for Lilly but also for the whole of the HSLC community. Lilly was competing against students from some of the country’s top universities and not only did her talent for design shine through but also her detailed technical knowledge of the Adobe software was clearly evident which is a testimony to the quality of teaching she has had at HSLC. Professional certification such as Adobe ACA is in high demand in today’s workplace and it is great for a school such as HSLC to recognise this. I’m sure that the global final in Orlando will be an experience Lily will never forget”.
It was an equally proud moment for Hornsea School’s ICT teacher Laura Ridley who delivers the Adobe Photoshop course, “I was absolutely over-the-moon when all three of them qualified for the National finals in the first place. For Lily to then go on and win it is just unbelievable. Everyone at Hornsea now wishes our new champion all the very best when she represents the UK and Hornsea in the World Championship finals. Hopefully Lily’s success will also trigger a resurgence of interest in ICT at Hornsea School”.
