TAUNTON town centre will be alive with mortar boards and ceremonial gowns on Friday as degree students from Bridgwater and Taunton College’s Taunton Centre celebrate their graduation at the Temple Methodist Church, and afterwards at the college’s conference centre.

The day will see the Mayor of Taunton Deane, Vivienne Stock-Williams, in attendance as the degree students celebrate their hard-won achievements.

The guest list also includes representatives from Plymouth University, the Open University and Edexcel, along with guest speakers Shane Griffiths, Co-Founder of creative digital workshop The Idea Bureau and Fran Bradshaw, Care Manager at Home Instead Senior Care.

“The annual graduation ceremony is a wonderful event where the efforts of our degree students are recognised and applauded by their peers, friends, tutors and families,” said Mike Robbins, principal of Bridgwater and Taunton College.

“More than 1000 young people now study higher education programmes with us, and this is set to rise as new degree apprenticeships offer technical, professional and vocational routes to higher level study.

"Our Taunton centre is widely recognised as a centre of excellence for degree level programmes, and we look forward to establishing a university centre in Somerset in the very near future.”