The Pearson National Teaching Awards 2026 – Frequently asked questions

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

• Early Years – All teams working in school-based and PVI group-based providers 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 FE teams
• There are also 2 whole school awards – Making a Difference -Primary/Secondary School of the Year
• The Award for School or College Partnership of the Year is for groups of schools/colleges working together that are driven by their collaboration with each other 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 settings in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
• We do not currently accept entries from online/virtual schools but this is under review for future years

Entries can be submitted by:

• SLT of the setting the nominee works in.
• Colleagues working in the setting the nominee works in.
• External stakeholders working closely with a nominee who can complete an entry with all the information required (for example a colleague working MAT-wide, Governors, local authority colleagues, SIPs, home-school link workers.

Please note: The HT/DHT/COG must be aware of and have given permission for the entry to be submitted. They will be contacted by The Teaching Awards if your nominee is shortlisted and have the right to refuse to progress the entry if they are not made aware prior to submission.

All entries that are submitted must be unique and written specifically for this entry. .

Entries are currently closed. You can register your interest to learn when the 2027 awards will go live by clicking here. Go to our categories page to choose the most relevant category for your nominee and complete the entry form online. Please read the suggested nominator guidance 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 any nominator guidance provided will really help you!

Ensure you do all of the following:

• Address the award criteria we provide for each category in your entry.
• If you say my nominee is an excellent… explain why, give examples, and importantly, describe the impact of their actions.
• 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 wider 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 (and do) access this themselves.
• Your inspection report – due diligence is part of the judging process. Again our judges look at this.
• Whole entries or 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!
• AI created entries with AI language throughout.
• Make your entry unique, and make it personal.

Yes. You can begin an entry form and choose to save and continue later. A link will be sent to the email you used to register, 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.  As with all IT fucntionality, sometimes we encouter issues, so if you want to be safe, we recommend you download the award criteria and write your entry offline, then once completed you can paste it into the entry box and complete the entry form. Please note the maximum word count is 1000 words (with an additional thousand in the additional info box). The system will cut your entry off at 1000 words, so please do not go over this, as it could be classed as incomplete entry.  NB Bullet points are counted as words.    

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. We ask that all nominees are celebrated on National Thank a Teacher Day.

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 a team that you entering into a different category, they can be included but 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 School or College Partnership of the Year 

The two catgeories below are open to indivduals or teams:

The Award for SEND and Inclusive Practice

The Award for Transformational Use of Digital Technology

AI can be a useful, time-saving tool . The key to a good entry is to make it personal.

If you use AI to help give your entry structure be aware of these points:

AI generated/assisted entries tend to repeat the criteria several times and be written in traditional AI language.  This can be offputting and make the entry difficult to read and challenging to really dig out the genuine information about your nominee. Ensure you back up any statements with personalised, specific examples, personalised to your nominee.

Judges read a lot of entries and stand out entries are personal. They allow the judges to really get a picture of the nominee, the environment they work in, their challenges and successes.

When talking about the impact of a nominee, written evidence, testimony and examples bring the entry to life.

It’s always best to finish the entry on a personal note, with your own ‘voice’, and not to re-iterate the criteria again in the final paragraph.

Refer to the nominator guidance for further advice.

The deadline for the 2027 awards will be announced once the awards are open for entry.

You will find out if you have been shortlisted by late-April.

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.

If your nominee is shortlisted our judges will contact you by the end of April 2026 to let you know. We ask that you liaise with them to arrange a virtual judging visit before the end of May 2026.

All certificate recipients and Silver Winners will be announced on Thank a Teacher Day.

The category Gold winner will be announced at the end of November 2027 either live on The One Show or at the UK Ceremony taking place at the end of the week’s BBC coverage.

The 2026 UK Ceremony will be held at the end of 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. News on the 2027 UK Ceremony will be announced in due course.

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

Absolutely! All Silver Winners are invited to a celebratory afternoon tea in London in July. It’s a fantastic opportunity for the winners to meet other nominees in their category, their judges, category sponsors, 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!