Sponsors

Headline Sponsor and Overall Education Hero of the Year

Step Teachers is the home of honest, ethical, and dedicated education recruitment.  Founded by two teachers in 2000, it has placed over 8000 amazing teachers and support staff into its partner schools with a network of branches in Norwich, London, Stevenage, Rainham and Plymouth, they are ideally placed to offer teaching staff to schools across southern England.

We’re passionate about placing the best local teaching staff into Norfolk’s schools.  From our office situated opposite Norwich Railway Station, our team of expert consultants have placed over 2000 teachers across the county.  We’re on hand to help Norfolk’s Primary and Secondary with their day-to-day, long-term, and permanent recruitment needs.

Step Teachers are proud of our Norfolk roots and we take our social responsibility seriously. This year, we were finalists in the EDP Customer Excellence Business Awards category – recognition of our mission to be honest, ethical recruiters.  We have also worked alongside Apprenticeships Norfolk to facilitate donating our Apprenticeship Levy to local nurseries.  Step Teachers transcends typical recruitment—believing in partnerships and proudly supporting Education in Norfolk.

• Teachers, Teaching Assistants, HLTA, and Nursery Nurses

• Ad-hoc and short-term supply, long-term, and permanent recruitment solutions

• We're on call 24/7, 365 days a year!

• Preferred Suppliers for Norfolk Schools & REC Audited Education Holders

• On the CCS framework

Step Teachers continues to demonstrate that an independent, family run business can thrive when inspiring their teams to adopt the work ethic derived from their core values of hard-work, professionalism, and honesty.  

Sponsors of Apprentice of the Year

Apprenticeships Norfolk is a free and impartial service run by Norfolk County Council [NCC]. It raises awareness of the benefits that apprenticeships can bring and the opportunities available locally, supporting individuals (of all ages) and businesses (of all sizes) to access apprenticeships. A dedicated team offers practical support with any aspect of setting up an apprenticeship; from guidance selecting a suitable apprenticeship; to choosing a training provider and also helping businesses access financial support. The Pathways to Work team provide specific guidance to young people aged 16-18 (and for those up to the age of 25 in disadvantaged groups) through the Apprenticeship Support & Knowledge (ASK) programme.

Apprenticeships are core to NCC’s goal to support people and the economy in Norfolk to thrive. Apprenticeships Norfolk seeks to increase the number of businesses offering, and people (of all ages) accessing apprenticeships in Norfolk; working collaboratively with key stakeholders and training providers to increase the breadth and availability of local apprenticeship delivery.

Sponsor of Teacher of the Year

Part of City College Norwich, Norfolk Teacher Training Centre (NTTC) has been a teacher training provider since 2014. NTTC works with primary and secondary schools to provide high quality school-based initial teacher training, leading to Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). 

NTTC is committed to training great teachers who help each child flourish into caring, confident, and resilient young people with a love of learning. NTTC has a personalised, evidence-based approach to working with its trainees and are proud of the support they provide to help them succeed. 

Currently NTTC has 56 trainees and Apprentices in Primary, Special and Secondary schools. As a small provider, NTTC is proud to be in the top 20% of providers nationally for the success of its trainees and Apprentices in completing its courses, achieving QTS, gaining employment, and for its graduates remaining within the teaching profession. NTTC’s graduates make a real difference within schools, with a number of alumni progressing rapidly into management positions. 

The NTTC team consists of a Secondary and Primary Curriculum lead, three part-time deputy Curriculum Leaders and a Director, together with two Development Officers who support the running of the courses and liaise with partner schools. NTTC is rated as Good by Ofsted and was successful in getting through the recent Department for Education ITT review.

Sponsor of Primary School of the Year

Norse Group’s catering team provides schools, care settings and business sites with freshly prepared, locally sourced food that positively impacts health, nutrition, and wellbeing.

Based in Norwich, the catering team serve 16,000 meals a day across 150 sites in East Anglia. They employ over 700 members of staff, most of whom work within the community they live.

Over 75% of the ingredients used are sourced from local suppliers within East Anglia and have maintained bronze level food for life accreditation for 12 years.

When it comes to education catering, Norse believe it’s not just about the food on the plate, they believe they are helping create positive memories for children and work in partnership with schools to provide hands-on learning and fun through food.

Norse Group’s catering team enjoy attending school council meetings to talk about menus, food, and nutrition. They also attend parent’s evenings and provide menu tasters to engage with the wider school community. This allows discussions around healthier choices and provides context for children about how they create menus to ensure they are nutritionally balanced. They truly believe children and young people are at the heart of school meals, so it is vital they are part of the Group’s decision-making. 

Sponsor of Student of the Year

RWE is committed to the region to encourage, enable and enhance a local highly skilled and diverse workforce to meet the business needs of our Norfolk Offshore Wind Projects and its Supply Chain, as well as raising the aspirations of individuals. RWE are creating pathways into the offshore wind sector via education and skills training, upskilling and re-skilling opportunities.