Jumeirah English Speaking School claims two titles at EJME Awards

Jumeirah English Speaking School won two awards at the Education Journal Middle East Awards, which were held on May 3 at Grosvenor House, Dubai.

Patricia Coffey was named Science Teacher of the Year. Coffey impressed the judges by not only inspiring her students in the classroom, but for sharing her love of learning with the wider teaching community online.

Reacting to her win, Coffey told EJME: "I'm absolutely elated. You never think you're going to be recognised for stuff like this, and the kids always say good things and that's fantastic, but it's really nice to get a higher award, and that the school recognises you, and that Education Journal Middle East now recognises that as well."

Coffey's efforts at JESS have led her to become a Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert. She has spoken at JESS CPD events, shares her students' work and her own best practice across Twitter and now runs a blog to further share her ideas with the broader scientific community.

Commenting on her use of social media, Coffey said: "I think being an educator, it's really important to be on Twitter nowadays. I got my inspiration from not only department but also from Twitter and saw so many other blogs and got ideas from there and felt inspired to actually set up my own blog. I've had such fantastic feedback from even higher educators all over the world and I've learned so much from them as well, so I felt like I wanted to add a little bit just to share. I share my blog with parents as well just to tell them about revision ideas, or other science teachers who want ideas and would like to share resources."

The Highly Commended nominee for Science Teacher of the Year was Renu Sunil Mathew from GEMS Our Own English High School, Dubai.

JESS' second win of the night went to Katherine Chuter, who was named English Teacher of the Year.

Chuter has supported her department in attaining consistently high percentages of A*-B grades at GCSE and 6-7 in the International Baccalaureate for a mixed ability cohort. At GCSE, the English department secures an entire point above independent school profiles, while at IB the average subject grade consistently sits significantly above the world average of 5 year-on-year.

To achieve these results, Chuter spends hours after school running support sessions, even making herself available during holidays if her students need additional support.

"I think the main thing is one sees the full potential of everybody, and one aims as high as possible and supports the children, both in terms of the scaffolding provided and just in the way that one can enthuse them and make them believe in their own potential. So I think really it's about believing that all the students can do it, because ultimately they want to," Chuter said about the need to personalise lessons for individual students.

The Highly Commended nominee in this category was Andrea Waller from Dubai International Academy

The event was sponsored by STS, Atlab, TELLAL Institute, Evolve Uniforms, iCademy Middle East, and Risalla Consulting.