St Mary’s Alumnus Receives National Teaching Award

A former trainee teacher at St Mary’s University, Twickenham was recently presented with a National Teaching Award in recognition of his work in a local secondary school. John Andrews, who graduated from St Mary’s in 2007, has won the Silver Pearson Teaching Award (Teacher of the Year) for his work at Featherstone High School in Ealing. He received the award during a school assembly, where he was presented with his certificate by Broadcaster Ian Hislop. John, who is also a qualified nurse, studied St Mary’s PGCE Secondary (Health and Social Care) Programme and after graduating began teaching at Featherstone High School in Health and Social Care, where he has been instrumental in inspiring young people to learn about and develop a career in the profession. The award forms part of Pearson’s annual ‘Thank a Teacher’ day in May which encourages students to send in thank you notes for their teacher. John will now be entered into the next stage of the competition, where the regional winners will be selected for the national prize. During the nominations process, John was recognised for his ‘energy, enthusiasm and creativity is inspirational, helping young people to grow in confidence and self-belief through his example and his exceptional teaching style’. John said, “I am absolutely humbled and honoured that my students nominated me for this award. Teaching health and social care is very worthwhile especially seeing my students progress into university or jobs related to health and social care." “The PGCE programme at St Mary’s definitely gave me the knowledge and skills to be able to develop my career in teaching, particularly working with pupils in an encouraging and motivating manner. The staff, Jane Chambers (Academic Director) and Ed Boyle (Academic Director) were extremely supportive and the lectures always interesting and there were some exceptional guest speakers. Ed particularly supported me when looking for a school placement in Northern Ireland and he even came to visit me once I was there!”