A talented pupil at Mount St Mary’s college has been crowned a national winner in a prestigious poetry competition.

Ella Watts, 16, a boarding student at the Derbyshire Catholic school, was one of 10 students to be awarded the Simon Powell poetry competition prize after entering a Poetry Live! day in Sheffield.

The youngster is following in the footsteps of leading Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, who taught at Mount St Mary’s in the 1870s.

She was also awarded the Manley Hopkins poetry prize at the school’s prize- giving day earlier this year.