Eligibility and Judging
Who can be nominated?
The QIA STAR Awards recognise those working within the learning and skills system. This includes all those within the college (FE) sector, community learning sector, work-based learning sector and private sector learning.
To be eligible nominees must work in England, in a place that is not a school or university. Their organisation or workplace, or programme they help to deliver, must either be fully or partly funded by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC).
A nominee may be an outstanding lecturer, trainer or voluntary teacher but these awards also celebrate the vast contribution made by so many others involved in learning and skills. They include valued members of staff whose job it is to ensure the smooth and efficient running of any learning establishment or workplace where learning is part of the everyday routine.
Who can make a nomination?
Anyone can nominate for a QIA STAR Award. Learners, colleagues and managers can all nominate any eligible person in the learning and skills sector whose commitment and professionalism has made a difference to the learning environment in which they work. Nominations for family members are not permitted.
Who will judge the nominations?
An independent judging panel made up of experts from the further education system will assess the 2008 entries. Nominations will be judged for how well they meet the published questions for each category and not against each other.
Tips from the judges
Feedback from STAR judges - how to write a winning supporting statement.
Thank you to everyone who nominated a STAR this year. The judges have commented that the standard of nominations was very high and they have enjoyed reading about the good work that is being carried out in the further education and skills sector as a whole.
Here are some examples of what the judges felt made a good nomination stand out from the rest:
- clear and well structured evidence of ‘how’ the nominee met the criteria eg: this person is a great leader because he/she has done the following and here are examples of how he/she achieved them;
- nominations where the 4 category questions had been clearly answered, thereby fitting the category they were in (ie: all the criteria were met for that category). In some cases, they were written as 4 separate paragraphs to show the distinction;
- nominations which described ‘how’ the nominee gave over and above what would be expected of them, rather than just an explanation of why they did their job well;
- evidence of ‘how’ the nominee excelled, which was tailored to their own particular environment eg: the work of someone in a college would be very different to the work of someone in a young offenders institute;
- nominations which highlighted ‘how’ equality and diversity were being understood and promoted.