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Eight teachers win inspirational teaching award from Oxford University

14 December 2010

Oxford University has launched a new scheme to recognise ‘inspirational teachers’ from UK state schools and colleges – and eight teachers from around the UK have been honoured with one of the inaugural awards.

Mike Nicholson, Director of Undergraduate Admissions at Oxford, said: ‘We started the Inspirational Teachers Award as a way of recognising the importance of school or college teachers as a particular source of encouragement and inspiration to students. There is a huge amount of hard work and dedication involved in securing a place at Oxford, and the submissions we received underscored how important a role teachers play in this process – both in devoting their own time and energy to helping student applicants, and in encouraging them to persevere in their ambitions no matter what.

‘We were impressed by the high quality of this year’s submissions, and the winning teachers chosen this year were those whose passion and commitment to their students had a wide impact. These teachers inspired students in their successful applications to Oxford, but also clearly helped raise the aspirations of others, and did their best to encourage all their students to realise their own potential.’

The winners are: Ian Cripps of Charleston Academy in Inverness; Martin Davies, of Tytherington High School in Macclesfield; Steven Driver, of Queen Alexander Sixth Form in North Shields; Janet Elias, of Maesteg Comprehensive in Maesteg; Kate Greene, of Cardinal Griffin in Cannock; Abbas Haghazali, of Cox Green School in Maidenhead, Ceri Anwen James, of Ysgol Gyrun Bro Morgannwg, in Barry; and Agnieszka Maria Lech, of Canterbury College in Canterbury. All were nominated by former students currently in their first year at Oxford.

The new award scheme recognises the crucial role teachers and careers advisors play in encouraging talented students in their schools or colleges. A selection of current first-year Oxford undergraduates were asked to nominate teachers or careers advisors for the award who inspired them to apply to Oxford, fostered their passion for a particular subject or supported them through the application process. The students were all from selected UK state schools or colleges with a limited history and tradition of sending students to Oxford.

The judging panel, including the Director of Undergraduate Admissions, met to select the eight winners, and will be writing to the education secretary.

The winning teachers will receive book tokens to use in their school or college and a framed certificate signed by Oxford’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Andrew Hamilton. He said: ‘Oxford devotes a great deal of energy and effort to encouraging all those with the ability and potential to apply here, regardless of background – but teachers play a crucial role in supporting and raising the aspirations of the most capable students year on year throughout their careers. I hope this award will send the message that students and universities recognise how valuable the role of a supportive teacher can be.’

Applications to Oxford from the state sector have risen by 77% in 10 years (in contrast to a rise of 50.5% from the independent sector). For 2011 entry, of the UK students that applied, 64.3% were from state schools and 35.7% from independent schools.

The University through its outreach work reaches 78% of schools across the country with post-16 provision – virtually all schools that field candidates capable of making a competitive application to Oxford. The University also has a major focus on working with teachers, including a series of regional teachers’ conferences each year, a one-day event for Oxford's own PGCE programme, and working with Teach First participants.

For more information or for quotes from students and teachers, please contact Julia Paolitto in the Oxford University Press Office on 01865 280 531 or julia.paolitto@admin.ox.ac.uk

Notes for editors

The University of Oxford Inspirational Teachers Award was started this year by Oxford’s Undergraduate Admissions Office.

Students from select UK state schools with little history or tradition of sending candidates to Oxford were asked to nominate a teacher/careers/HE advisor who inspired them to apply to Oxford, who helped them through the process and/or who fostered their passion for their subject.

Then nomination form asked students describe in no more than 750 words the way in which this person inspired them to apply to Oxford, supported them in the application process and/or fostered their passion for a particular subject. Winning teachers were informed on 8 December.

Oxford tries hard to ensure that all those with the potential to succeed apply – regardless of background. The total spend on outreach across the University and colleges is c.£4m a year, in addition to the more than £6.6m a year spent on bursaries.

Broadly, the admissions team has several areas of activity that are designed to provide opportunities for students from schools with limited HE application support to find out more about what Oxford is looking for in candidates. These are not activities designed to give undue advantage to students from disadvantaged backgrounds, but rather to encourage those students who might be able to make a competitive application to Oxford but do not have the proper support or information about how to apply and give themselves the best chance:

Working with schools: The University has contact with 78% of all schools offering post-16 education.

Working with teachers: The University over the past several years has focussed an enormous amount of effort in working with teachers, allowing Oxford to help many cohorts of students via their teachers rather than individual students in any given year. Activities include a series of annual regional teachers' conferences; a one-day event for Oxford's own PGCE programme (run through Oxford’s school of education), which trains new teachers being sent mainly into comprehensive schools; and similar programmes working with Teach First participants.

Summer schools: Oxford for many years ran summer schools through the Sutton Trust, and this year thanks to a major donation has launched a new summer school called UNIQ, which takes students from UK state schools who have strong academic backgrounds and allows them to attend a week-long summer school where they get a chance to study subjects in-depth and learn what living and studying at Oxford is like. This year's summer school will see 650 students participate, and the number will rise to 1,000 places by 2014. Several of the colleges also run summer school and outreach activities in addition to those run centrally.