Awards Information
The Educators’ Trust
The Trust makes awards to individual educators, celebrating outstanding innovation and excellence in educational practice at all levels of education and in all settings in which learning takes place. Our choice of the term ‘educator’ is deliberately inclusive, to cover all those professionals who contribute to creating a stimulating, diverse and supportive environment in which people learn and enrich their lives – teachers, lecturers, trainers, coaches, instructors, mentors.
The awards are open to full-time, part-time educators or self-employed practitioners, employed by any educational establishment that supports learning.
Some awards are funded and named by specific liverymen of the Worshipful Company of Educators. Others are supported by the general fund, the titles of which have been agreed by the trustees.
Nominations of outstanding educators are sought each year for each award from organisations in the statutory, private, independent and charity sectors delivering educational services. Nominations are judged against sets of criteria by panels of judges drawn from the trustees and members of the Company.
Certain awards made by the trust are opened for nomination when available. Any such awards will be notified here. Please return regularly to see if there is an award for which you might make a nomination in your field.
Thirteen of the Trust’s awards are presented at the annual Awards Dinner – a glittering occasion held in The Merchant Taylors’ Hall, one of the oldest livery halls in the City of London:
The Master’s Award for Outstanding School Leadership: This award was established to consolidate the close links between the Company and the Trust in their joint celebration of and support for the education profession. It marks the importance of leadership for thriving, achieving and happy schools.
The Trust Award for Art & Design Education: This was one of our first awards, initiated by an endowment from a liveryman of the Educators’ Company, to support professional development in this field. It was subsequently continued by the trustees in recognition of the importance of creativity in the visual arts to the curriculum.
The Mary Lou Carrington Award for a Businesswoman with a significant contribution to education: Mary Lou Carrington was a businesswoman and a Common Councillor in the City of London Corporation, with a passionate commitment to education. A founding member of the Educators, she sadly died in 2008. This award is in her memory.
The Keith Hutton Award for Theatre and Performing Arts Education: Keith Hutton was a founder member of the Company of Educators. He sadly died in 2016. Keith was passionate about theatre and the performing arts and left a legacy for a bursary to support the professional development of educators in this field.
The Inspirational Educator Award: There are eight awards in this category. This award was initiated and sponsored by Master Educator, John Leighfield, CBE, with the theme of ICT in Education. Since then, the trustees have chosen a new theme every year, often focusing on topical issues or relatively neglected areas of education. We are particularly interested in outstanding and innovative practice in challenging environments or unusual contexts. In previous years, the themes have included special educational needs schools, prison education, hospital schools, teaching Shakespeare, environmental education, alternative education, mental health in education and early childhood education. For 2026, the Trustees’ choice is Exercise and Sports Education and you can download nomination information HERE.
The Robert J Jones Award for Environmental Education: Robert J. Jones was an inspirational teacher who encouraged and set many of his students on to prestigious careers. The donor of this Award, Peter T. Warren, Past Master of the Worshipful Company of Educators and past Chief Executive of the Royal Society, was a student of Robert J. Jones and was inspired by him to become a geologist and learn of the complexity of our environment and our dependence upon it. Read more about R J Jones HERE and how to nominate for this award HERE.
In addition to these thirteen awards, the Trust has a joint bursary scheme with City and Guilds to support a peer mentoring programme delivered by St Giles Trust. The scheme is generously funded by Past Master Educators, Susan Fey OBE and Peter Warren CBE.
The Trust also funds The Franklin Grants for Professional Development, named in honour of the Founding Master of the Company, Professor Raoul Franklin CBE, whose generous legacy has enhanced the value of the Trust Fund, safeguarding its future. These grants are open to individual application from educational practitioners of any subject or level of education, whether full-time, part-time, or freelance. Individual educators interested in applying for a Franklin Grant can find details HERE.
Award nominations currently open:
Invitations to nominate for our 2026 awards to ‘Inspirational Educators’ in the field of Exercise and Sports Education will be sent to appropriate mainstream and charitable educational organisations during late Autumn 2025 and is available for download HERE. The deadline for nomination is 14 January 2026.
Robert J. Jones Award in Environmental Education
This award is open to full-time or part-time educators who are teaching, supporting or facilitating educational activities. The award will be given to an outstanding practitioner in environmental education which relates specifically to living organisms, their relationships to each other and, in particular, their responses to the impact of human activities.
Detailed guidance on nomination for the Robert J. Jones Award 2026 is available HERE.
The deadline for nominations is 11 December 2025.
Robert J. Jones was an inspirational teacher who encouraged and set many of his students on to prestigious careers.
After army War Service (1944-1947), he went to St Catherine’s College, Cambridge where he studied zoology and geology. In 1949, as his first post, he became Biology Master at Whitgift School, where he remained until 1972. A parent of one of his pupils wished his son to study geology and Robert took up the challenge and sat the A Level with his student. They both passed and he was then able to teach the subject formally and many of his students became professional geologists. Moreover, Robert went on, during his Whitgift career, to gain a PhD as an external student at Birkbeck College, University of London researching and publishing on the origins of ‘Limestone Pavement’ in Britain. He also ran the Whitgift Scout troop
Robert engendered a deep appreciation in his students of biology and geology and the wider environment, indeed of life itself. He was a polymath, exhibiting paintings at the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition and, being an accomplished musician, playing and teaching the French Horn and teaching a new ‘O’ level in The History of Music. His skill as a teacher was enhanced by the way in which he could do what he taught and widen the horizons of pupils accordingly.
The donor of this Award, Peter T. Warren, Past Master of the Worshipful Company of Educators and past Chief Executive of the Royal Society, was a student of Robert J. Jones and was inspired by him to become a geologist and learn of the complexity of our environment and our dependence upon it.
The Educators’ Trust is incorporated under the Charities Act 2011 as Charitable Incorporated Organisation 1179353