A Teaching award provides a lift for the whole school

It's the end of a discussion session on the academies bill at the Teaching Awards regional final for the south-west; Baroness Shirley Williams, chair of UK judges, asks if she might take a straw poll of the 40-odd nominated teaching staff now gathered in the graceful Georgian setting of Bath's Assembly Rooms. "How many of you," she asks, "regard local authorities as the source of control in schools?" Not a single hand is raised. "And how many regard control as coming from central government?" All but one of the teachers' hands shoots up; the single abstainer teaches in an independent school. Given that a central rationale for the new academies bill is to release schools from the control of local authorities, this is a fascinating response. The past hour has seen Williams canvassing some of the region's best teachers on what the bill will mean for their schools and the pupils they teach. There is clearly some concern. "Our local authority is small, just 10 secondary schools – if three opt out, then the local authority-provided services [ie for children with special needs] will crumble because they won't have the economies of scale and so won't be financially viable," says one teacher, who says he is not opposed to academies in principle. "And that means the maintained schools that remain won't have the chance to become outstanding." "I really worry about equality of opportunity for children," adds someone else. "You might have one child who needs extra support in a class. If you've become an academy where you're having to pay for that yourself, it's very expensive to provide for just one child – so would the academy decide not to buy that in? And would that mean we end up with clusters of schools that don't cater for children with certain needs?" Why the big rush to get schools to opt for academy status, was a concern raised by two teachers. "There's a sense that if you're not on the bus in the next six weeks, you'll have missed it. And that's a shame, because it means the government has missed an opportunity to have a debate about the future of the education system," says one. The discussion is followed by a celebration of the commitment and skills of the region's finest teaching talent. When it turns out that two members of staff from Stoke Damerel community college in Plymouth have been honoured, there are whoops and cheers; Carol Hannaford wins secondary head of the year, the culmination of 30 years spent at the school, and Garry Hammond grins bashfully as he is named teaching assistant of the year for his work leading a special unit for more vulnerable children who need a specially tailored alternative curriculum. Although it's great for individual teachers to be recognised, there is a wider benefit to awards such as these, suggests Caroline Evans, chief executive of the Teaching Awards. "One head said to me that the award had given the whole school a lift," she says. "If someone is nominated by a parent or pupils or colleagues, that means an awful lot. Some of those communities have challenges and what it means for people in those communities is priceless." The Welsh regional ceremony also took place last week. All the regional winners go through to the national awards in October. Next week: winners from London and the south-east, and the east.