Medway School Workforce Awards 2008

Valuing educations most important resource

The School Workforce Development Team hosted the first annual School Workforce Awards, supported by the Kent Messenger Group, on Wednesday 9th July at the Corn Exchange in Rochester.  The awards are all about recognising and rewarding the outstanding people in Medway's school workforce.  

All school staff including caretakers, midday meals supervisors, teaching assistants, office staff, teachers and managers were able to nominate and be nominated.

There was a fantastic atmosphere and a real sense of achievement at the awards, it was great to see the winners getting the recognition they deserve.

You can download a full list of winners and the reason they were nominated here.

Our 2 top award winners were Paula Tumber from Greenvale Infants and Jo Price from New Brompton College.

Paula seems to have an endless list of talents of which she gives entirely to the school.  Paula was nominated by Di Morgan, Deputy Head at the school who said the following: "As well as being a full time Teaching Assistant and Senior Midday Meals supervisor she is the main first aider, drives the minibus, is the school disco DJ (using her own equipment) is a school governor, a prominent member of the National Healthy schools committee, and is a major part of all fundraising events at school."  (Full nomiation)

Jo is the Community and Trust Manager who was nominated by her Headteacher, Judy Rider at New Brompton College.  Judy didn’t waste a second in getting in her nomination for Jo and it’s clear to see why, the contribution to school improvement and outreach to the community that she has achieved is truly a reason to celebrate her.  Judy said "Jo is the watchword for Extended schools within the local primary schools and is a very successful bidder of additional funds for community development projects. We love her!"  (Full nomination)

We also celebrated the 100th Higher Level Teaching Assistant to gain the status in Medway, a great achievement by all those who have met the HLTA standards.  Ian Hollingsworth from Medway's HLTA training provider VT Four S presented Andrea Hulott from Lordswood Infant School with a special award from us. Ian said the following, "I firmly believe that as time goes by and the value of these new HLTAs is recognised, they will add considerably to the ability of schools to provide new opportunities for children across the whole ECM and extended schools agenda.  You are making it happen." Download the list and picture of the HLTAs that attended the awards. Find out more about Higher Level Teaching Assistant status

You can view the pictures from the awards by selecting this link - Pictures from SW Awards 2008

We'd like to thank everyone involved for their hard work and we look forward to next years event.  Details of how to nominate will be sent to schools in January 2009.

If you would like to make any comments, or have any queries about the School Workforce Awards, please email the team at schoolworkforceteam@medway.gov.uk