Three Australian teachers are among just 50 teachers to make the shortlist for the Cambridge University Press’ Dedicated Teacher Awards, selected from over 6000 nominations across 97 countries.
Primary and secondary teachers were nominated by their students, who detailed an inspiring story about the hard work they do each day. These entries were analysed using competition criteria to select a shortlist of 50.
Among those to make the Dedicated Teacher Awards shortlist were Australian teachers Helen Comerford (Lumen Christi Catholic College, NSW), Danni Mattiazzo (Larrakeyah Primary School, NT) and Alison Worthington (Coombabah State High School, Qld).
From the shortlist, a panel of expert judges will choose six top finalists. The public will have the opportunity to vote for their favourite story when the finalists are announced via the Cambridge University Press Education social media channels on 20 January 2020. The overall winner will be revealed on 3 February 2020.
The finalists will feature on a thank you page at the front of every new Cambridge University Press Education textbook from May 2020 among other prizes which include class sets of books or digital resources.
They will also receive an invitation to the Cambridge Panel, an online community of teachers and researchers that help to shape the Cambridge University Press’s education publishing.
“Teachers say and do life-changing things every day – often without realising it,” said Michael McGarvey, Director of Education at Cambridge University Press. “This could be something as simple as a kind word at a difficult time, or explaining a concept in a way that suddenly makes everything click into place for the student. For that, we’d like to join with people around the world to say thank you together.”
Last year, maths and accounting teacher Ahmed Saya from Cordoba School in Pakistan (pictured above) was named the winner of the 2019 Dedicated Teacher Awards.