A teaching assistant helping youngsters get on track has received a national award.

Christopher Haywood, of Almondbury Community School, has won a Silver Teaching Award in the category for Teaching Assistant of the Year at the Pearson Teaching Awards 2018.

Mr Haywood, 57, who lives at Brighouse , will join 65 other winners from across the UK at an awards ceremony on October 21 in London to find out which of them will be among just 12 winners of the Gold Plato Awards – the UK’s “Oscars for Teachers”. The event, “Britain’s Classroom Heroes”, will be filmed and broadcast by the BBC as a showcase of excellence in education.

Mr Haywood, who has worked as a design and technology assistant at the Almondbury school for seven years, was nominated by headteacher Trevor Bowen, who described him as “a modest character, self-effacing and unassuming” and added: “Chris approaches his role with enthusiasm, professionalism and good humour. We think he is great.”

Almondbury Community School, National Teaching Assistant of the Year, Christopher Haywood with his award.

A former building engineer and surveyor, Mr Haywood switched to education in 1994 and taught design technology at a number of schools in Yorkshire before joining the staff at Almondbury.

Among his initiatives there, he developed links with Cummins Turbo Technologies at Turnbridge to enable Year 5 and Year 6 pupils to work with engineers and undergraduate trainee engineers to develop Green Power electric race cars in school. In less than six months, the youngsters built a racing car from scratch, tested it and raced it against other schools in the North.

He has organised “The Cummins Cup” – a race between a car built by his pupils and one being built by pupils at neighbouring primary schools – and is also supporting pupils in Year 7 with The Bloodhound challenge to design and build rocket cars to compete in a race-for-the-line competition. He guided two teams of Year 9 students competing in a Land Rover 4x4 challenge. One of teams won the Future Stars Award despite only having three weeks to prepare for the event.

National Teaching Assistant of the Year, Christopher Haywood with his award and members of the year six racing team which he has worked on with students from Almondbury Community School.

Mr Haywood has organised trips to engineering firms and competitions all over the country. Two years ago, one of the school’s Year 11 girls became the first female apprentice at one local engineering company. Mr Haywood supported her through the application process and coached her for the interview.

Mr Bowen said Mr Haywood showed commitment to all his pupils, adding: “In supporting technology lessons, Chris knows their achievements well and plans his support accordingly. Pupils are engaged in learning as soon as they enter his room. The confidence generated by Chris’ excellent subject knowledge pervades the classroom.

“Pupils are motivated and empowered to work independently; they show excellent attitudes to learning and clearly enjoy what they do.

“Chris is skilled in convincing each pupil that they have a valuable contribution to make, and that they are able to succeed.”