I like the second one, but I'd make the type a slight smaller pointsze, so it doesn't look so squished. On the bottom left side, put another line, matching the one on the right, where he will handwrite the date (spelled out June 2, 2004)- that's the traditional thing on award certificates. (I've done a million of ’em - okay, maybe not that many, but ...).

The school name, city/state should also be on the certificate, it can be somewhere small - who knows where these kids will be 10 years from now, 20, 30 - and they might want to keep it for their kids to see some day!