ITV News Meridian's Social Affairs Correspondent wins national award

ITV News Meridian is celebrating success at this year's national Education Journalism awards after Social Affairs Correspondent Christine Alsford picked up four awards.

She became the first regional reporter ever to win the biggest award of the night for the Outstanding Contribution to Education Journalism.

The Ted Wragg award, named after the famous educationalist, recognises a consistently high standard of specialist reporting over a sustained period of time. The Education Editor of The Times was among those also on the shortlist.

Christine also won the Schools Journalist of the Year category for the second year running and was named runner up in the Higher Education and Regional Journalist of the Year categories.

The CIPR Education Awards are open to journalists across print, broadcast and online and gives two awards in each of ten categories - a winner and runner up. Christine has an unprecedented record, having been recognised for eight years in a row.

This year Christine's winning entry on schools was a series of reports which she filmed herself, featuring the work of a secondary school in a deprived inner city community in Southampton.

It included a film with exclusive access to the school’s truancy bus which tours the tough estate with the headteacher at the wheel, giving absent pupils a lift to class.