A 2020 Kent Teacher of the Year Awards judge has paid glowing tribute to the county’s school and college pastoral support staff and urged people to submit awards nominations for them.

Peter Heckel, co-director, of Ashford-based children’s services social enterprise Salus said he was “honoured” to be involved with the awards, and that his organisation would not be able to succeed without the hard work of school and FE pastoral support staff.

Organised by the KM Charity Team, the awards aim to showcase the dedication and innovation of benchmark educators from across Kent and Medway.

There will be separate awards for the county as a whole and for its different districts, for primary, secondary and further education, and in broad range of categories.

Mr Heckel is leading the search to find the county’s best pastoral support staff.

He said: “We’re really excited because we sponsor the pastoral support award, and every year we get so many exciting nominations of excellent teachers and support staff across the county, and it’s such an incredible honour to be able to judge that.

“Without the excellent work done by Kent teachers, we wouldn’t be able to do the work that we do in schools.

Last year, the Kent Wellbeing Champion of the Year award went to Sally Creavin of the Sheerness West Federation.

Mr Heckel said he was keen to see nominations in other categories besides pastoral support, adding: “If you want to nominate anybody in a school, whether that be a teacher, support staff or a volunteer, go to kentteacheroftheyear.co.uk.”

The other judging organisations apart from Salus are the University of Greenwich, Kreston Reeves, Kape HR, the Thinking Schools Academy Trust, KCS, The Education People, Loop CR, Ashford International Hotel, Streetspace, Canterbury Christ Church University, Diggerland, Three R’s Teacher Recruitment, Kent Further Education and Specialised Sports Products.

Nominations for the awards must be submitted by 11.59pm on March 1, and the winners will be revealed at a ceremony in mid-May at the Ashford International Hotel.

To find out more and submit nominations, visit KentTeacheroftheYear.co.uk.

And watch a video in which Peter Heckel talks about the awards here: