![\"\"](\"http:\/\/middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Andria-Zafirakou-Global-Teacher-Prize-2018-winner-with-HH-Sheikh-Mohammed-bin-Rashid-Al-Maktoum.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAndria Zafirakou, an art and textiles teacher from Alperton Community School, Brent, London,\u00a0has been named as the winner of the\u00a0Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Prize 2018, awarded under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and Ruler of Dubai.<\/p>\n
The glittering award ceremony was hosted by comedian and actor Trevor Noah and included a special musical performance by\u00a0Oscar-winning actress and Grammy award winning singer\u00a0Jennifer Hudson.\u00a0Over 4,000 children gathered to announce this year’s winner via a special video message. Almost 2,000 of those gathered achieved a world record \u2013 world’s largest human hashtag symbol.<\/p>\n
Four times Formula One\u00a0champion Lewis Hamilton was involved in a stunt where he raced to the Global Teacher Prize 2018 ceremony in a Mercedes Benz GTC, escorted by three Dubai Police supercars (Ferrari, Mercedes SL AMG and Audi R8). He arrived just in time to deliver the Global Teacher Prize trophy on stage.<\/p>\n
In a special congratulatory video message broadcast into the ceremony hall,\u00a0UK Prime Minister Theresa May,\u00a0said:<\/p>\n
“Being\u00a0a great teacher requires resilience, ingenuity, and a generous heart. These are the qualities that you share with your students everyday. So thank you for all you have done and continue to do”.<\/p>\n
“I would also like to extend a huge thank you to His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum. For his support of the teaching profession and patronage of this prize.”<\/p>\n
Now in its fourth year, the US$1 million\u00a0award is the largest prize of its kind, and was set up to recognize one exceptional teacher who has made an outstanding contribution to the profession as well as to\u00a0shine a spotlight on the important role teachers play in society.<\/p>\n
Andria Zafirakou\u00a0teaches in an inner-city school in Brent, one of the poorest parts of the UK, with over a third of children living in poverty and many of her students coming from crowded homes shared with multiple families. At the same time, some of her pupils are exposed to gang violence\u00a0with the borough having the second highest murder rate in the UK. Brent\u00a0is\u00a0also ethnically diverse\u00a0with the second largest proportion of black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people in England and Wales, and a 2011 school census highlighting that 149 languages were spoken.<\/p>\n
Sunny Varkey, founder of the Varkey Foundation, said:<\/p>\n
“I want to congratulate Andria Zafirakou for winning the Global Teacher Prize 2018. I hope Andria’s story will inspire those looking to enter the teaching profession and shine a powerful spotlight on the incredible work teachers do all over the world every day.”<\/p>\n
The other nine finalists for the Global Teacher Prize 2018 are:<\/p>\n
Nurten Akku\u015f\u00a0a pre-school teacher and principal at Ayvac\u0131k Pre-School, Samsun, Turkey;
\nMarjorie Brown, who teaches history at Roedean School, Johannesburg,\u00a0 South Africa;
\nLuis Gutierrez, a social science teacher at the Gerardo Paredes School, Suba, Bogot\u00e1 Colombia;
\nJesus Insilada,\u00a0who teaches English and creative writing at Caninguan National High School in Lambunao, Iloilo, Philippines;
\nGlenn Lee,\u00a0an engineering and technology teacher from Waialua High & Intermediate School, Waialua, Hawaii, United States;
\nDiego Mahfouz Faria Lima, director of Darcy Ribeiro Municipal School, in S\u00e3o Jos\u00e9 do Rio Preto, S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil;
\nKoen Timmers, a lecturer at PXL university college in Hasselt and a computer science teacher at CVO De Verdieping school in Heusden-Zolder, Belgium;
\nEddie Woo, a mathematics teacher from Cherrybrook Technology High School, Sydney, Australia;
\nBarbara Anna Zielonka, an English teacher at Nannestad High School, Norway.<\/p>\n
The original top 50 shortlisted teachers were narrowed down to ten finalists by a Prize Committee. The winner will be chosen from this ten by the Global Teacher Prize Academy. All ten finalists will be invited to Dubai for the Award ceremony at the Global Education and Skills Forum (GESF) on Sunday 18 March, where the winner will be announced live on stage in a red carpet gala event which is beamed around the world.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
To join the conversation online follow #TeachersMatter on:\u00a0https:\/\/twitter.com\/TeacherPrize<\/a><\/u>\u00a0and\u00a0https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/teacherprize<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Andria Zafirakou, an art and textiles teacher from Alperton Community School, Brent, London,\u00a0has been named as the winner of the\u00a0Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Prize 2018, awarded under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and Ruler of Dubai. The glittering […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4346"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4348,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4346\/revisions\/4348"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}