It was the big prom night that a Hampshire teenager thought she might never make.

Charlotte Knight hasn’t been the typical student in her final years at Upper Shirley High.

For the past two years, the 16-year-old from Maybush has had a severe battle with type 1 diabetes.

She has been in and out of hospital constantly, unable to go to school at all for her GSCE exams.

But now her family have said they are bursting with pride because she has managed to take her exams and get dolled up for a night to remember.

Daily Echo: Charlotte Knight (16) and her brother Callum Knight (17).

Charlotte, fondly known as Lulu by her family, didn’t know if she was going to be able to celebrate the end of school with all her friends after being hospitalised for eight weeks.

Her mum, Catherine Knight said: “It was a massive night for her and we wanted to make it even more special by telling everyone just how amazing she is for fighting so hard these past two years and being so strong.”

Charlotte was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at eight years old and it dominates her life.

She has to be careful with what she eats, give herself injections throughout the day, constantly do finger-prick tests and it takes a major toll on her physically as she is exhausted all the time and has really struggled to come to terms with the condition.

Catherine added: “Lulu really hates having diabetes, it’s something that has massively affected her and it does change everything for her, she can’t be a normal carefree teenager all the time so she has been very low.

“There’s not really much awareness about her form of diabetes, everyone knows about type 2 which you sort of do to yourself but this has just taken over her life.”

Due to the amount of time Charlotte had to spend out of school with hospital check ups and appointments to see if she could use a different kind of insulin treatment, she ended up studying and taking her GCSE exams in Bursledon House.

Catherine said: “We are all just so overwhelmingly proud of her, she has been such an inspiration working so hard and staying hopeful. We are all 100 per cent behind her and it was amazing to see her all glammed up in her dress ready for prom.

“I think she was a bit nervous because she hasn’t had much time with her classmates but we went with her and so did her brother and I really think she felt like a princess.

“I really didn’t want people to forget that she was a part of that school, all her teachers have said how amazingly she has done to keep going, it was really important that we all pulled together to make sure this was something she could always remember.”