The College of Animal Welfare Teaching Awards

The College of Animal Welfare has a set of awards to honour outstanding contributions by staff employed within the organisation. These awards are nominated and voted on by the students.

The nominations and winners of the 2015 Teaching Awards are:

Outstanding Lecturer

This is for the individual who has delivered an outstanding lecture over the last 12 months. It may involve the use of enhanced technology to enhance their teaching.

Shortlisted nominations: Emma Hugill, Emma Helkenberg, Joe Millbank, Kirsty Edwards and Lauren Norton.
Winner: Emma Hugill
This is what the students said about Emma:
Emma engages the class well, she shows great passion when teaching and demonstrates exceptional knowledge of the subject. She always ensures that students are coping with the lesson and makes the extra effort to support difficult areas that a student may be experiencing with their studies. Her positive personality and way of teaching really stands out. She is extremely approachable, knowledgeable and explains things very well. She uses real life experiences in almost all her lectures which help the learner apply the knowledge to real life. She always has time for any student and is very willing and keen to help with any problems that students have. She is organised, thoughtful and considerate as to how she thinks her students will learn best. You can clearly see when she is teaching that she cares about the learners’ success and tries her absolute best to do everything she can to help each individual student to reach their full potential. She makes it easy to build a student-teacher relationship which is extremely important. She is an amazing teacher and goes above and beyond to give the support to her students. Emma makes the boring parts fun to keep everyone engaged and learning.

Clearly a very worthy person to receive the award of Outstanding Lecturer

Outstanding Quality Assurance Supervisor (QAS)

This is for the Quality Assurance Supervisor (QAS) who has undoubtedly played a key role in the education of their students.

Shortlisted nominations: Stacie Carey, Helen Clarke and Claire Allott.
Winner: Stacie Carey
This is what the students said about Stacie:
Stacie is kind, caring, very approachable and gives great encouragement on how to improve your nursing skills. We always look forward to her visits. Every time I see Stacie running into her coaches or students, they react to her as if they’d run into a long-lost family member. Her dedication to her job and willingness to support other CAW teams is an example to us all. Particular points of note included how impressed they are with how quickly Stacie gets back to them with any queries. She is great in a moment of crisis. A very experienced and all round a lovely person.

Well done Stacie on receiving the award of Outstanding Quality Assurance Supervisor.

Innovative Teaching

This award is for the person that has shown a commitment to each and every student: challenging them to aim high whilst supporting them in pursuit of their aspirations and goals. They have developed new ways of delivering teaching and learning and assessment, which may include utilising technology, e-learning or introducing other novel techniques to encourage learning.

There were four recipients of this award:
Winners: Andrew Coe, Charlotte French, Lauren Norton, Nina Tomlin.
This is what students said about our winners:

Andrew Coe
Andrew uses various methods of teaching and a wide variety of visual aids which are particularly effective for learning. Andrew’s classes are really enjoyable as he always tries to use real props to show you and help you understand Anatomy and Physiology. He is enthusiastic, positive and a highly motivational tutor. Well done Andrew.

Charlotte French
Charlotte is new to teaching although is keen to deliver hands on activities in each session. Charlotte has grown in confidence and is innovative in her use of lesson planning. She Likes to try lots of practical learning exercises and is a great teacher! She consistently explains topics in an easy to learn way providing lots of practical experiences in class which helps .Her enthusiasm for teaching is evident. Well done Charlotte.

Lauren Norton
Lauren is known for her endless enthusiasm! She is always happy and friendly, excellent knowledge, makes learning fun and exciting. Very approachable. Always look forward to Lauren’s lectures. Lauren is always coming up with new ideas and methods of how to remember subjects. Very creative and thinks outside of the box. She always makes our lessons interesting and has the most creative ideas on how to teach us. Lauren is very enthusiastic and encourages her pupils to succeed. She is very knowledgeable and goes out of her way to help others. Well done Lauren.

Nina Tomlin
Nina is great at always coming up with new ways of teaching us so that we can learn and trying out new techniques. She always asks for feedback to ensure that we are all learning in the best possible way that we can. She is great at trying new styles to teach difficult topics. She finds new and exciting ways that we can explore the topic and learn. She is a brilliant lecturer and is always coming up with new tasks for us to do to help us learn better. The way she explains things are great as well. Nina has well planned lectures which have both class participation and fun videos for memory triggers. She is truly innovative with her teaching . Well done Nina.

Best Feedback Provision

Feedback is central to the learning process. Good feedback isn’t just a grade, but explains both what a student has done well and what they need to do to improve next time. Students had the opportunity of nominating the staff member that had helped them most.

Shortlisted nominations: Adrian Hudson, Claire Defries, Emma Hugill, Lauren Norton, Nina Tomlin, Charlotte French and Caroline Blake.
Winner: Claire Defries
This is what the students said about Claire:
I have felt at ease asking Claire for support when needed. She is very approachable. Claire is all round the best support tutor, she is a wonderful lecturer which helps support my studies at home. She’s also helpful with external matters. Claire takes support to a whole new level.

Well done Claire on receiving the award for Best Feedback Provision.

Most Inspirational Lecturer

This award recognises lecturers who demonstrate the ability to inspire students to achieve as much as they can through their approach to teaching and their engagement with both students and subject content. This person will have made you challenge your own perceptions and pushed you beyond your academic boundaries. This award aims to recognise a lecturer who helped students to understand and actively promotes the employable skills which a student will achieve on completion of a module or a course of study. They could also be a lecturer who is always happy to talk to students about career options and requirements, or who offers advice on how the student could gain required experience.

Shortlisted nominations: Lauren Norton, Kirsty Edwards, Julie Cory, Joe Millbank.
Winner: Gemma McAllister
This is what the students said about Gemma:
Gemma is always happy to help and has the patience of a saint. Willing to take on board people’s opinions and engages class in discussions. Classes are always interesting and Gemma has an obvious interest in her subject which is infectious. She is an inspiration! Her story about how she cried the whole way through her OSCE practicals and still managed to PASS made me believe I had a chance! Even when I was ready to quit Gemma gave me the motivation to carry on. And I did it!

Gemma is enthusiastic and supportive and is definitely winner of the Most Inspirational Lecturer award, well done!

Contribution to Academic Support

The individual has shown an exceptional commitment to supporting students academically. They have gone out of their way to advise and/or support students through difficulties with their course. They develop a close professional working relationship with students, adapting their approach for each student.

Shortlisted nominations: Claire Defries ,Emma Hugill, Julie Cory and Nina Tomlin.
Winner: Julie Cory
This is what the students said about Julie:
Very helpful feedback from assignment review and exams. Always willing to help. Always prompt and encouraging feedback.

Congratulation Julie, your impact on learners and their success is clearly felt. Well done on winning the Contribution to Academic Support award.

The College of Animal Welfare Staff Award

This year the recipient of special Staff Award was Adrian Hudson, Work-Based Learning Manager.
Here is what Barbara Cooper, Principal of The College of Animal Welfare had to say about Adrian:

Adrian first came into contact with the College when we were based at Wood Green Animal Shelters just up the road back in 2000, some 15 years ago. His then role was working in London for his local council with animal warden responsibilities. Adrian would regularly visit Wood Green bringing with him stray animals that the Council were passing to Wood Green for rehoming.

Prior to this he also had a role patrolling on horseback the council’s public parks which sounds to me the sort of job that I would have loved!

As with quite a few of the staff of the College, Adrian started his connection with the College as a student.

He was the first and, to my knowledge, the only person in the whole of the UK to have achieved all three pathways in Pet Retail, Animal Welfare and Animal Training for the Level 3 NVQ in Animal Care and Management. Each one of these would have taken a student about 18 months to complete but Adrian achieved all three over a period of two years; a challenge indeed.

Once Adrian joined the College as a member of staff he quickly became involved in the development of new courses and took over the responsibility for work-based learning offering the new NVQs in animal welfare which, at that time, were only just getting going in the animal care sector. He also was, and still is, the main College lecturer delivering bespoke training to the RSPCA and other organisations such as local councils and specialist sector organisations. Adrian was a previous manager of our Huntingdon centre responsible for veterinary nursing, animal care as well as many short courses.

More recently Adrian set up the delivery of our Greyhounds in Prisons project at Little Hey prison with the Retired Greyhound Trust. This has been hugely successful for both the greyhound and the person achieving the award. The greyhound trust have seen an increase in successful outcomes for rehoming, as the dogs have had the benefit of significant socialisation and training before moving to their new home.

Adrian also represents the College at various industry sector meetings including those driving forward new Apprenticeships in Animal Care and other related subjects.

Throughout his career Adrian has worked tirelessly with students to encourage them to excel. I am sure he has many stories and has heard many explanations from students that could make a very interesting book!

He is, however, at heart a man who has made his career animal welfare, and indeed his own animals are very important to him. I shall not take the opportunity to provide you with a list of them all over the years as that would take another book!

Adrian, on behalf of the College, all those students who you have helped over the years and myself personally, I wish to thank you for your support, your professionalism and friendship.