IT’S no easy task these days for any teenager to ignore distractions and concentrate on studying for school exams.

But Sonny Ashworth has just finished sitting his GCSEs despite a year of pain and trauma that would have caused lesser youngsters to give up any hope of pursuing their education further.

Two years ago, just before his 15th birthday, Sonny was diagnosed with leukaemia after finding a lump on his cheek. He underwent months of gruelling treatment at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital culminating in a bone marrow transplant from his brother Spencer, eight.

Sonny’s determination in the face of such adversity earned him the admiration of staff and fellow pupils at Alder Grange, Rawtenstall, where he is now in the sixth form.

And it has also led to him becoming the winner of the Secondary School Pupil of the Year category in the Lancashire Telegraph Schools Awards.

The award, sponsored by Nelson and Colne College, was made after Sonny was nominated by Alder Grange’s head of school Joanna Griffiths who described him as ‘an absolute star’.

She said he had shown ‘strong will and a steely determination to return to school and be back among his friends’. When he was in hospital fellow pupils organised a ‘Do Something Funny for Sonny’ day and raised an astonishing £2,000 so that his parents could stay over in Manchester while he was having chemotherapy.

After he went into remission following the transplant in March last year, Sonny returned to classes having missed a year and is now setting his post GCSE sights on History, English and Media A-levels next year.

His mum Fabia said: “Sonny is now on three-monthly appointments and is building up stamina again. He could have taken another year off but he is very determined and just wanted to get back and move on.”

  • Award judges also praised the courage of burns victim Saliha Maqsood of Rhyddings Business and Enterprise School, Oswaldtwistle; Lucy Baxter of Westholme School, Blackburn, for her ‘positive energy’ at school despite suffering with Cystic Fibrosis and Crohns disease and the charity fundraising achievements of teenage opera singer Grace O’Malley who is also a pupil at Alder Grange High School.