The Pearson National Teaching Awards 2023 – Frequently asked questions

Yes! Our awards are completely free of charge to enter.

• Early Years – All teams working in any early years setting educating children from birth to five, or Foundation Stages 1 and 2
• Schools – Teaching staff, headteachers, teaching assistants. Any member of support staff can also be entered into our Unsung Hero category
• Colleges – FE Lecturers and teaching teams
• There are also 2 whole school awards – primary and secondary
• The Award for Impact through Partnership is for teams that are primarily driven by their collaboration with other educational settings or external organisations for positive impact on children aged 4-18.
• The Award for Unsung Hero is open to anyone working in an Early Years, school or FE college setting.
• We accept entries from England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

• Entries can be submitted by staff working in the same setting as their nominee. Additionally, stakeholders working closely with a nominee can also enter – for example, a colleague working in a MAT head office, external stakeholders such as Governors, local authorities, home-school link workers, and in the case of the impact through partnership category, a member of a project team.
• A member of the nominee’s senior leadership team must be aware of and have given permission for the entry to be submitted.

Go to our categories page to choose the most relevant category for your nominee and complete the entry form online. Please read the suggested guides to maximise your nominee’s chance of success. Once you have completed your entry ensure you click the submit button at the end of the entry form. You will be sent an automated email confirming the submission of your entry.

Reading this guide will really help you!

Ensure you do all of the following:

• Keep in mind the key points we provide for each category and address them in your entry.
• If you say my nominee is an excellent… explain why, give examples, and also describe the impact
• Gather feedback, evidence, and quotes from others – other colleagues, students, perhaps even parents or other stakeholders the nominee works with. Everyone will have something different to add, and this gives your entry colour and can show different perspectives and impact.
• Tell us about the individual or team members – as people not just as educators.

Our judges don’t want to see::

• Reams of data – they can access this themselves
• Your inspection report – due diligence is part of the judging process
• Parts of entries that have been copied and pasted from other colleagues’ entries you might have submitted in other categories/awards – it’s always obvious!

Of course! You can begin an entry form and choose to save and continue later. A link will be sent to the email address you enter, or you can copy and paste and save the link provided. This will allow you to continue your entry at a time that is convenient to you.  

No, you don’t. Some nominators like to keep it a surprise until they know whether their nominee has been shortlisted. We do however send a certificate to all nominees whose nominators have submitted completed entries. and we do ask that all nominees are celebrated on National Thank a Teacher Day (June 21st 2023).   .

Yes, but the entries must be different i.e. personalised to the nominees. If we consider any entries for nominees from any one school or college to be identical / very similar in content except for the names, those entries will not be shortlisted.

You can only enter an individual into one individual category. However, if that person is also part of an FE Team or a whole school team, then they can be entered into the relevant award categories, but they must not be the primary contact or the lead team member.

Our team awards are listed below. Click on the titles to read the criteria and eligibility criteria.

The Award for Early Years Team of the Year

The Award for Making a Difference – Primary School of the Year

The Award for Making a Difference – Secondary School of the Year

The Award for FE Team of the Year

The Award for Impact through Partnership 

Individual support staff can be entered into The Award for Unsung Hero.

All entries must be submitted online by 5.00pm on Friday 24^th February 2023

You will find out if you have been shortlisted by mid-March 2023.

If your nominee is not shortlisted and has not been put forward to the judging stage, you will be sent a certificate for them which we ask you to present when you celebrate them on National Thank a Teacher day, 21st June 2023.

If your nominee is shortlisted our judges will contact you by March 20th 2023 to let you know. We ask that you liaise with them to arrange a virtual judging visit between March 20th and May 5th 2023.

All certificate recipients and Silver Winners will be announced on Thank a Teacher Day on 21^st June 2023.

The ultimate Gold winner will be announced at the end of November 2023 either live on The One Show or at the UK Ceremony taking place at the end of the week’s BBC coverage.

The UK Ceremony is held annually in late November in London. Gold Winners are announced live at the event or via BBC’s The One Show in the week running up to the UK Ceremony.

We give all our Silver a free allocation of tickets to our UK Ceremony, with an option to purchase further tickets.

As part of their prize package, all Silver Winners’ hotel rooms are paid for on the night of the UK ceremony, at a top Central London hotel.

Absolutely! All Silver Winners are invited to a celebratory afternoon tea in London. It’s a fantastic opportunity for the winners to meet other nominees in their category, their judges and for the Teaching Awards team to meet them too! Our winners often stay in touch after this event and see it as a great networking event – it is a great opportunity to share each others’ practice with colleagues from around the UK.

If you email [email protected] one of the team will gladly help!