An ‘inspirational’ Cambridgeshire teacher has been named as a Pearson National Teaching Award silver award winner.
Esmeralda Salgado, who works at King’s Ely, is one of 80 teachers across the country to be honoured with a silver award in the Teacher of the Year in a secondary school category.
The awards mark teachers’ outstanding commitment to changing the lives of the children they work with every day.
Esmeralda is head of modern foreign languages (MFL) at King’s and has been teaching languages to students from key stage two through to key stage five.
She is an advanced skills teacher and, alongside her role as head of MFL, has been King’s Ely’s digital lead for the past two years.
Esmeralda was instrumental in helping her colleagues develop the skills to successfully take their teaching online when the pandemic struck in 2020.
Her approach to teaching is reflected by the school’s digital learning strategy and languages curriculum, and is underpinned by Rosenshine's principles of instruction and research on second language acquisition.
In her current position, Esmeralda has supported and coached colleagues within MFL and other curriculum areas, especially NQTs and struggling teachers in Medway schools, to help them develop their own teaching and learning strategies; boosting their confidence.
Speaking of her win, education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, said: “Congratulations to Esmeralda on this incredible achievement, and for the hard work and dedication which led up to it.
“Winning this award is impressive, well-deserved and shows Esmeralda’s commitment to helping students achieve their full potential.”
As a silver award winner, Esmeralda has now been shortlisted to win one of 16 Gold Awards later in the year.
Recognition of this once in a lifetime achievement will be broadcast on the BBC’s The One Show as part of a week-long celebration of teaching.
The winners are being honoured as part of the wider celebrations for national ‘Thank a Teacher Day’, bringing together everyone across the country to celebrate schools and colleges at the heart of our communities.
Head of media and public relations at King’s Ely, Jordan Day, said: “Esmeralda’s goal is the driving force of the entire King’s Ely MFL department, and it is at the core of the teaching and learning steering group at King’s to which she belongs.”
This year marks the Pearson National Teaching Awards’ 23rd year of celebrating school staff across the UK.
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