The Outstanding Personal Tutor for 2025 is Rachel Haindl from West Suffolk College

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Award Nominations 2026

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The nomination round for the Dr Sally Wootton Outstanding Personal Tutor Award 2026 is now open.

Named in honour of Dr Sally Wootton, the Outstanding Personal Tutor Award celebrates a lifetime of dedication to improving the lives of learners through exceptional personal tutoring. For more than 30 years, Sally has championed the importance of the personal tutor role, inspiring and supporting practitioners across the sector to deliver outstanding guidance, care and development for their learners. This award recognises not only excellence in personal tutoring, but also Sally’s enduring legacy in shaping and strengthening the profession.

The Award is designed to give recognition to tutors who provide extraordinary service to their students and their learning community. The award will acknowledge and celebrate the contributions of staff whose primary responsibility is to support individual learners to develop and progress. The Outstanding Personal Tutor Award recognises innovative tutoring techniques, the quality of practice, the impact an individual tutor makes and the standards to which they work.

Nominations are invited from across the Further Education and Training Sector and open to anyone undertaking a 1:1 role supporting learners to achieve. Job titles for relevant nominees may include, but are not restricted to Tutor, Mentor, Learning Coach and Tutor/Assessor.

Eligibility Criteria

The nominee should be practicing as a Personal Tutor (or equivalent title) at the time of nomination, and will have completed at least 1 full academic year as a personal tutor in their current organisation.

Nomination Guidelines

Each organisation may nominate one tutor for the award. Nominations are submitted by an Outstanding Personal Tutor Nomination Form which includes a of Statement of Recommendation.

The Nomination Form

See below our embedded form to complete. It must be submitted once complete, so we recommend your statement of recommendation is written on a separate document in advance and then copied and pasted into the below form.

Statement of Recommendation

This must be written by the nominator as part of the completion of the form. It should address how the tutor fulfils each aspect of the selection criteria, citing relevant examples of their practice.

Fair Process

To ensure complete removal of any bias, our administrator will ensure that the names of nominator and nominees are removed before submitting them to the panel for review and scoring.

Selection Criteria (100 total points)

Applications will be judged on how well they demonstrate that the tutor:-

1. Makes a significant impact on individual learners’ progress (20 points)
2. Shows initiative and creativity in supporting learners and meeting individual needs (20 points)
3. Applies the range of personal skills and attributes required to support learners well (20 points)
4. Demonstrates how well their practice reflects the criterion set out in the National Occupational Standards for Personal Tutoring (20 points)
5. Promotes the value of tutoring within their organisation and serves as a mentor to other tutors, formally or informally (10 points)
6. Pursues personal growth and professional development through either self directed learning or by attending workshops, conferences, seminars, or classes to learn new skills (10 points)

Visit our Award Winners page to see our previous winners and finalists.

General enquiries regarding the award should be sent to info@fetn.org.uk Please note, in the interest of fairness and impartiality details relating to individual nominations cannot be discussed.

We look forward to receiving your nomination and wish you good luck!

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Nomination Form – Outstanding Personal Tutor

Nominator Full Name *

Nominator Contact Number (for any queries) *

Nominator Email Address *

Nominee Full Name *

This need to be the correct spelling etc as this will be used to produce the engraving on the award if they are selected.

Nominee Email Address *

This will be used to write to the nominee to inform them of their nomination.

How many years has the nominee been a Personal Tutor (or equivalent)?

Provide the reasons why you are nominating this individual: *

Please be as clear as possible about the reasons you are nominating them for this award.

Makes a significant impact on individual learners’ progress (20 points) *

How does the nominee do the above? You might want to describe what they do, how they do it and what makes their ways of working/approach stand out in comparison to others.

Shows initiative and creativity in supporting learners and meeting individual needs (20 points) *

How does the nominee demonstrate the above? You may wish to comment on how they generally support learners referring to their nature and approach, then go onto talk about how they specifically meet individual needs, using examples.

Applies the range of personal skills and attributes required to support learners well (20 points) *

The key phrase here is ‘apply’ – giving examples may be helpful to clarify your nomination. Listing their skills and attributes will not be sufficient but writing about each one and the impact of them will support your statement.

so (20 required

Demonstrates how well their practice reflects the criterion within the NOS (20 points) *

The National Occupational Standards (NOS) for Personal Tutoring can be found on our website within the Professional Development menu.

Promotes the value of tutoring within their organisation & serves as a mentor to others (10 points) *

This statement needs to be very clear on how they promote good, better or best practice in personal tutoring within your organisation. It must also detail examples of how they have mentored/coached other Personal Tutors.

Pursues personal growth & professional development for Personal Tutoring (10 points) *

This should indicate how self-sourcing they have been and what activities they have undertaken to ensure their practice stays current and enables the best possible outcomes for their learners.

If you would like to give any further information to support your nomination please do so below:

The more detail you provide, the more able the panel will be to make a decision.

Confirmation and GDPR Agreement *

• I confirm that the above information provided is a true reflection of the nominee. I also consent for FETN to process the above information in accordance with their privacy policy.

Submit Nomination