The Worshipful Company of Educators

Nomination for Awards
by

The Educators’ Trust

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.

Nominations for the 2023-24 Inspirational Educator Awards and other awards including the 2024 Robert J Jones Award closed in December 2023. The nomination information below is for reference only. Award winners will be announced in February 2024

The theme for the eight Inspirational Educator Awards this year is Mental Health in Education, a topic which is receiving a great deal of attention in the media. The impact of the COVID lockdown on children and young people, as well as negative aspects of social media, have made this a major social and educational concern. The DfE has issued guidance for schools, Universities UK has launched a network to support work on student wellbeing in HE, while similar measures exist for FE colleges, along with support from FE national bodies and local networks, including the NHS. Our awards will celebrate outstanding contributions to this sensitive multi-disciplinary area of whole-institution policy and practice.

Guidance for Inspirational Educator Nominators can be downloaded HERE.

2024 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. Introductory details about the award for 2024 are available in a short leaflet downloadable HERE.

Detailed guidance on nomination for the Robert J. Jones Award 2024 is now available HERE.

The deadline for nominations is 14th December 2023 and the winner will be announced in February 2024.

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.

Our other awards cover art and design, a businesswoman who has made a significant contribution to education, environmental education, school leadership, and educational aspects of theatre and performing arts. Invitations are being sent to mainstream and charitable educational organisations to nominate outstanding educators for these awards.