Rebecca James reports as an Orient star gives out the prizes at a school awards ceremony…
Orient defender Scott Cuthbert took time out to attend the Norlington Boys School Celebration Evening.
The towering O’s star spent an evening at the all-boys school’s celebration evening at Walthamstow Assembly Hall last week to give out sports awards to the students.
The local school, based in Leyton, celebrates the success of its students every year with an evening of presentations and, as in past years, a number of VIP guests attended including Terry Wheeler, the Mayor of Waltham Forest, and John Cryer MP, serving Leyton and Wanstead.
The evening was also filled with a number of guest speakers and musical performances from students of the school and the students were clearly very impressed to have a professional footballer hand them their awards.
Cuthbert took to the stage to hand out the sporting awards after a warm introduction that spoke about his footballing career including his time as captain for the Scotland under 21s and has been the club’s ambassador to the school for the past three years.
He said, “It was nice for me to be able to give the students that have clearly worked hard in sports this year some recognition by giving them awards. It was a pleasure to meet the students and to be involved with the celebration evening.
“I enjoy spending time with schools in the community, they really appreciate it and now I recognise some of the children from Norlington School as I have been their ambassador for them for a few years now.”
Mr Bygott, Head of PE at Norlington, said, “It’s great that Scott can be here as an inspirational figure to our students.”
He added, “The link between the school and the club has been fantastic for Norlington. The pupils have gained so much from us being part of the LOPASS (Leyton Orient Partnership of Associated Schools Scheme) and it is great for them to be handed an award by Scott, someone that they look up to.”