Calling all School Councils / Student Leadership Teams / Class Representative groups!  

Following their successful launch in 2024, the Student Voice Awards are back for 2025!

JUDGING CRITERIA

The Student Voice – Teacher of the Year Awards will be presented to a teacher who helps you all to learn, celebrates everyone in their class, really wants you to do well and builds your confidence and love of learning.

This teacher will be making a big difference to you; they will have a passion for teaching, a passion for their subjects and be able to inspire a passion in you. On top of this we are looking for teachers who are kind, make learning fun and help you to be the best person you can be.

The Teacher of the Year Award is open to any qualified teacher in a Buckinghamshire school.

Award Criteria

We are looking for a teacher who:

• Inspires you to develop a love of learning,
• Makes learning fun and interesting – you love to be in their class!
• Cares about every pupil in their classroom and inspires you to do the same
• Has an impact beyond your classroom, both on the whole school and wider school community

Who to nominate?

How your group decides who to nominate is up to you.  You could consider: 

• Installing a suggestion box for all students to cast votes into
• Student Voice members hosting conversations in form time 
• Student Voice members running a survey with peers 

If you do decide to involve all the students in the school, you will need to agree on a process and communicate this clearly in a way that reaches all the students.  Packs include a poster that you can edit, photocopy and use to communicate with students, if needed.  

You will also need to collect the reasons why the teacher is being nominated so that you can include all this information on your entry.  We have also included a template nomination form in this pack, but please use whichever format works best in your school.

Selecting one teacher per school to enter into the Buckinghamshire School Awards

You will then need to agree how to judge the nominations received and decide which teacher your school would like to enter into the Student Voice Award – Teacher of the Year 2025.  The nominee must be selected by the young people in the Student Voice group.

Ideas of how to do this include:

• Counting up the nominations and selecting the teacher with the most nominations.
• Each Student Council member reading all the nominations and then individually voting for the teacher that they feel best represents the school.
• Each Student Council member reading all the nominations and then the whole council debating and agreeing which teacher to enter.

Making the entry

Once you have decided which teacher to enter, your Student Voice group will need to write the nomination.  You will have up to 500 words to explain why you think your selected teacher deserves to win the Student Voice Award – Teacher of the Year 2025.  The nomination must be written by the pupils; groups can be supported in this by their staff facilitator, but the nomination should be centred around pupils’ own words. 

Entries must be submitted by your group’s staff facilitator, and can either be made:

• Online at The Buckinghamshire Schools Awards Nomination Form. From the drop-down menu, select either 'Student Voice – Primary Teacher of the Year' or 'Student Voice – Secondary Teacher of the Year'.
• By completing the hard copy entry from included in this pack, scanning it in and emailing it to buckinghamshireschoolawards@buckinghamshire.gov.uk.

Entries need to be made by 5pm on Friday 14 March 2025.  Please do look at the judging criteria and make sure your entry explains why your nomination meets the criteria.  Only one teacher can be nominated per school.  Judging for the Student Voice awards will be undertaken by the young people in our county-wide Youth Voice forum, the Buckinghamshire Youth Voice Executive.  

Student Voice Award Pack

A Student Voice Award pack will be sent to the Student Body Chair at every school.  This will include:

• Welcome letter and instructions.
• Poster template, which can be adapted for the nomination process used by your school.
• Hard copy nomination form. If your Student Council would prefer to handwrite a nomination form, this can be completed, scanned and emailed to buckinghamshireschoolawards@buckinghamshire.gov.uk.
• Copy of the judging criteria for the Student Voice awards