SOME of North Somerset s top teachers are in the running to receive prestigious national awards.

SOME of North Somerset’s top teachers are in the running to receive prestigious national awards.

Winners of The National Teaching Awards will be announced at a glamorous ceremony at the London Palladium on October 21.

All teachers who received regional prizes earlier in the year have been automatically entered into the national awards.

In the West, Neville Coles, principal of Priory Community School, Worle, won the Guardian Award for Teacher of the Year in a Secondary School. He was nominated when he was deputy headteacher.

He said: “Hopefully, the fact that I have been nominated for a National Teaching Award will benefit the school as a whole and will continue to improve our reputation.”

Linda Heaven-Woolley, of Broadoak Mathematics and Computing College in Weston, won the Royal Air Force Award for Headteacher of the Year in a Secondary School.

She said: “I’m very much looking forward to the London ceremony and it really is an honour to reach the national final. Wherever I come at the finals the regional award has been a true feather in the cap’ for our school.”

Carol Penney, of Baytree Special School, Weston, won the Ted Wragg Award for Lifetime Achievement, and Bernie Richardson, of Westhaven Special School, Weston, won the Teaching Award for Enterprise.

All four have been entered for the same categories at national level.

The awards ceremony, to be hosted by the BBC’s Jeremy Vine and former X-Factor presenter Kate Thornton, will be screened live on BBC2.