This month has brought the conclusion of The Teaching Awards 2012; nominations were counted, finalists notified, and now the winners have been announced!
The awardm om the ‘Thank a Teacher’ campaign, which allows any grateful student to send forth a ‘thank you’ to any member of staff they feel is particularly deserving of appreciation for outstanding services to teaching. In effect, a single ‘thank-you’ acts as a nomination, however, members of staff can also nominate directly. Throughout March and April, judges review the nominations from across the nation, selecting the finalists, whom they then go on to visit. On the 20 June, otherwise known as ‘Thank a Teacher Day’, the results are announced in the press, and celebration packs are dispatched to the finalists’ schools. Finally, in October, the ceremony is televised on BBC2, when the winners are presented with a gold Plato.
The categories of our winners include ‘Teaching Assistant of the Year’, ‘Teacher of the Year’ and ‘Outstanding New Teacher of the Year’. This year’s ‘Teacher of the Year’ went to Nathan Kemp of Tollgate Primary School. Nathan is described as “an exceptionally gifted young primary teacher, with a moral purpose to his work that has a major impact on children” who preaches to his children to “go for [their] dreams”. He has worked at the school for six years and faced the challenge of teaching a class whereby 70% of its pupils knew English as a second language only. Yet, this statistic did not deter Kemp, and the same statistic can be applied to the number of pupils who went on to achieve a level 5 in Maths and English, a remarkable achievement for the young teacher.
More information and the complete list of winners can be found at: www.teachingawards.com/winners