News from the judging panels
We have more than 400 volunteer judges this year, 70 per cent of them Fellows - that's TA winners - who are judging 12 categories for 2009.
Two panels have new chairs for 2009. In the West of England, Baldev Singh (pictured here with Tony Blair), a former teacher from Bristol and a UK award winner, chaired his first panel meeting.
Baldev was head of ICT at John Cabot City Technology College in Bristol when he won the 2004 Teaching Award for Innovation. A former research scientist, he will also be a UK judge this year for the new Becta Award for Next Generation Learning.
In Northern Ireland, Professor Fabian Monds is the new chair of the judging panel. He is a distinguished academic, a former BBC governor, and was the first chair of judges when the awards began in Northern Ireland in 1999, one year after the English awards.
Bobby Jennings, principal of Slemish College and a UK winner in 2002, has stepped down from the NI chair but becomes a UK judge for The Award for Teacher of the Year in a Secondary School.
