Lauren Meredith, who produces editorial content for the Monmouthshire Beacon and Abergavenny Chronicle, was named Journalism Apprentice of the Year award at the Cardiff and Vale College Apprenticeship Awards, held last night (Thursday 9 February).

The Cardiff and Vale awards were held as part of National Apprenticeship Week, which celebrates the positive impact of apprenticeships for individuals, businesses and the wider community.

This year’s theme ‘Skills for Life’ reflects on how apprenticeships help individuals to develop the skills and knowledge required for a rewarding career.

Lauren is one of the five apprentices close to completing their training programmes with Tindle, having built up valuable work experience in the newsrooms while undergoing formal courses to gain the qualifications needed to work in editorial.

In response to her incredible achievement, Lauren said: "Winning the journalist apprentice of the year award feels like an amazing achievement as I now not only have a valuable qualification and work experience through doing the apprenticeship with Tindle but I now also have an award that displays the effort I put in throughout.

The colleagues I work with have played a massive part in my success during this apprenticeship. Everything I now know about writing for a newspaper has come from spending time in an office surrounded by talented individuals and learning from them.

This apprenticeship has been a great opportunity and has taught me so many aspects of journalism that I wouldn’t have learnt through just going to university."