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.
2025 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 2025 is now available HERE.
The deadline for nominations is 12th December 2024 and the winner will be announced in February 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.
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.
Individual educators interested in applying for a Franklin Grant for professional development can find details HERE.
Nominations for the 2024-25 Inspirational Educator Awards close on 15 January 2025. The nomination information referenced below has been distributed to a number of potential nominating organisations.
The Trustees wish to award inspirational educators in 2025 working in early childhood education. Nominees do not have to be qualified teachers. The Trustees particularly welcome nominations for candidates delivering learning in challenging, unconventional or community settings.
The award is open to full- part-time or self-employed educators teaching, supporting or
facilitating educational activities with children aged between three and eleven years of age (Foundation & Key Stages 1 & 2). It is open to educators working across a wide range of establishments and at various stages in their careers. Nominations are welcome for those who teach, train, coach or mentor other educators or who are specialist programme innovators, project developers and managers, so long as practical impact can be demonstrated. Researchers in the field of pedagogy are also eligible.
Guidance for Inspirational Educator Nominators can be downloaded HERE.
The Educators’ Trust is incorporated under the Charities Act 2011 as Charitable Incorporated Organisation 1179353