Miss Caroline Nofer
Teaching Awards 2008 Winner
The BT Award for Teacher of the Year in a Primary School in East
Gorefield Primary School, WISBECH
“Take anything in the world that is boring, give it to Miss Nofer and it will become more fun than Disneyland!” So says one enthusiastic pupil of this magical primary school teacher’s ability to engage her pupils in all aspects of learning.
Caroline Nofer’s lessons for her class of mixed Year Three and Four pupils are always lively and engaging. Her pupils don’t just study the Tudors, they enjoy a full Tudor banquet – including a boar’s head from the local butcher. When they study capacity, in maths, they make giant ‘cocktails’, and when they study fractions they slice up pizzas.
When it comes to reading, she brings books alive with silly voices and by dressing up in character, and she has helped pupils make their own Wallace and Grommit inventions using plasticine-based animation.
Even the Teaching Awards judges, who were in her classroom to observe her teaching, soon got caught up in a lesson on minibeasts and found themselves partnering pupils as they went outside to study more about insect habitats.
“She is,” says one pupil, “the best teacher in the galaxy.” Another says: “If we get things wrong she doesn’t tell us off, she explains it.” And a hundred per cent of parents say their children enjoy school and are making good progress with her as their class teacher.
Caroline makes sure that all her pupils are given work appropriate to their abilities, and always pins projects to subjects that pupils can relate to – for a persuasive writing exercise they had to write an e-bay advertisement. She is keen to develop her professional skills, and makes sure she keeps on top of new developments in classroom technology – in fact she uses technology so much she has worn out her whiteboard!
Colleagues say, “you observe her lessons and they are perfect.” The judges decided that “Caroline, in our opinion, is the whole package.”
