St Laurence’s Lizzy is named Cambridge teacher of year

A Catholic deputy head has been named Teacher of the Year in the Cambridge News and Media Education Awards and a Catholic primary was also shortlisted as Primary School of the Year.

Lizzy Bennett, Deputy Head (Teaching and Learning) at St Laurence's Primary School in Cambridge was named as Teacher of the Year.She is also English subject leader and PE subject leader.

Lizzy won praise from judges for raising the level of PE teaching and creating an environment for pupils where they feel trusted, safe and like there is nothing they can’t achieve.

She said: “I came into teaching as a vocation, this means the world to me. I had a lovely evening at the presentation awards and I was thrilled to be nominated and delighted to win it.

“My role involves me supporting teaching staff in developing their practice to become the best practitioners they can be and provide high quality first teaching for the children in our school.

“Over the past two years we have developed the sporting opportunities for the children at St Laurence and wehave range of sports clubs on offer; tag rugby, netball, athletics, dance, Change 4 Life (Legendary Legends), goalball and many more. We have also had a variety of sports teams representing St Laurence atcompetitions organised by the Cambridge School Sports partnership and we haverepresented Cambridge Schools at the Level 3County competitions for dance, tennis and athletics.”

Headteacher, Clare Clark, paid tribute saying: "Everyone at St Laurence was so delighted by Lizzy’s nomination for Cambridge Teacher of the Year and her success in winning the award. It is very well deserved and reflects her role as one of our deputy headteachers as well as PE leader and the impact her energy and positivity has with children and parents. St Laurence has just been successful again in retaining the prestigious Sports Gold Mark.

"All of our staff work so hard and it’s great for Lizzy to receive this recognition. This is the second consecutive year St Laurence has featured in the Awards as our School Business Manager, Liz Taylor, won the Support Staff category last year."

St Alban's Catholic Primary School, was also a finalist in the Primary School of the Year category.Headteacher, Joe McCrossan, said:"This nomination is very pleasing as it comes from the parents. It is always a pleasure to receive awards but to know our parents are very happy with the school is extra special."

The awards were presented at Homerton College in Cambridge on Tuesday July 18 and nominations for the awards were made by readers of the Cambridge News.

David Bartlett, editor-in-chief of Cambridge News, said: “Once again the Cambridge News education awards was a fantastic evening, and I hope all the nominees enjoyed the evening as much as I did.

“It was an incredibly moving and inspirational evening and shows just how much talent there is in Cambridgeshire."

Pictured above, Teacher of the Year is presented by Richard Duxbury Regional Managing Director Cambridge News & Media and David Bartlett – Editor in Chief at Cambridge News to Lizzy Bennett. Picture, copyright of Cambridge News and Media, by David Johnson.

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