Naace Impact Awards

Naace, if you haven’t heard of them, are a bit like Bafta for ICT education professionals and every year hold the Naace Impact Awards. Standing for the “National Association of Advisors for Computers in Education”, every year they have awards to celebrate excellence and impact in the use of technology in education.

I was very lucky to be nominated last year. It was very humbling to be considered and I’m super grateful for being thought of in that way. It’s that time of year where the nominations are open again. Before I go any further, please do not nominate me and certainly not based upon this post. I’m writing this just to spread the word of the excellent work that Naace do.

The awards fall across lots of different sectors and awards are given for:

• Community Impact
• Leadership Impact
• Early Years & Primary Impact
• Secondary Impact
• Inclusion Impact
• SEN Impact
• Curriculum Support Service Impact
• Technical Support in Schools Service Impact
• Lifetime Achievement Award

Previous winners are people, schools and organisations that have some serious pedigree. Their impact in their communities is really substantial. It’s no small wonder I didn’t win!

Last year Nicki Cooper @GeekyNicki won the secondary award for her work both in her school and beyond – developing the UK’s first ‘Kodu Kup’ (Kodu is a free visual programming tool created by Microsoft) and sharing her schemes of work and other resources freely via her website: http://www.interactiveclassroom.net/ whilst also being a CAS Master teacher, Microsoft in Education ‘Expert Educator’ and Subject Leader of Computing at her school in Kent.

Nicki represents the very best in our profession. Someone who gives her time to freely share her resources, gives up her time graciously and without reward to support and develop Computing in schools across the country. She is a true champion in my books and was very deserving of the accolade given to her last year.  The embodiment of what makes the awards so special, in my opinion.

The global impact award was given to ‘Freaked Out‘ writer, Simon Pridham of Aspire2Be for his then work at Casllwchwr Primary School where he was Head teacher. Over the course of just a few years through his inspiring leadership he brought 1:1 iPads to the school which impacted not only upon the students, staff and governors but the community as a whole. During the time he implemented his vision with his community pupils’ performance in English in Key Stage 2 improved significantly where the proportion of pupils achieving level 4 in writing in key stage 2 rose from 71% in 2008 to 90% in 2011. Read more about the inspiring work in this Estyn case study located here.

And if you want a who’s who of inspiring educators, just check out the people who have won the lifetime achievement awards over the years. They’re the people who inspire me to do better every day.

The inspiring stories continue…

So who will win awards this year? Will it be Dan Edwards and Tricia Kelleher of the Stephen Perse Foundation who not only inspire their learners through their superb 1:1 deployment but also share all of their learning resources on iTunes U for the world to learn from? Will it be my old team from Clevedon who have taken the use of mobile learning to the next level with the inspiring use of iBeacons to trigger location based learning experiences for the students. Will it be Sheli Blackburn for the amazing impact she’s had through her work pioneering the Digital Leader Network, pushing weekly live chats on Twitter and supporting the impact of Digital Leaders in schools all over the UK? Will it be Nina Jackson who has been running training courses all over the world on the use of technology to help learners with SEND, PMLD and more and has been transforming the learning opportunities of those students (and their teachers) from the amazing opportunities she brings to their attention.

Whoever you choose to nominate for a Naace impact award this year, make sure you make your nomination count. Sing for the unsung heroes. Shout for those doing it every day who don’t ask for praise or reward. Do it to reward those who keep pushing the boundaries whilst keeping it consistent, inspiring and having significant impact in their institution for the students they work with and for.

For more information visit the Naace site here and have your say: http://www.naace.co.uk/conference2015/impactawards