The Best Primary School Teacher in the United Arab Emirates 2023 – 2024 Revealed. Top Schools Award Winner. Official.
The Winner
The SchoolsCompared.com Top Schools Awards for
The Best Primary School Teacher in the United Arab Emirates 2023 – 2024
is awarded to:
Jamie Summers, Teacher of STEAM, Sunmarke School Dubai
Our view of Jamie Summers, Teacher of STEAM, Sunmarke School Dubai
KHDA: Very Good with Outstanding Features
Review: https://schoolscompared.com/all-through/sunmarke-school-jumeirah-village-triangle/
Review: https://whichschooladvisor.com/uae/school-review/sunmarke-school
Jamie Summers – The (Very Humane and Lovely) Pied Piper of STEAM
“Mr Jamie Summers makes the STEAM Curriculum come alive at Sunmarke School Dubai.
Miss Samantha Morris. Positive Education Leader – Primary and Year 5 Teacher.
“Relentlessly positive, infectiously enthusiastic, hugely talented, Mr Jamie Summers has transformed STEAM at Sunmarke School.”
Andrea Higgins. Headteacher of Primary. Sunmarke School Dubai
“I am so pleased that Mr Jamie Summers has been nominated as Primary School Teacher of the Year.
I have watched him work – and I am just… blown away.”
Annie Griffith. Deputy Headteacher Primary. Sunmarke School Dubai.
We have been asked not to share the many videos and photos about the amazing Mr Summers. Should the school be agreeable we do think that they should be shared as far as the eyes can see and we will update this. But they do say so much about this outstanding teacher – and as much about the lovely human beings at Sunmarke who have put their hearts and souls into celebrating him, and his many contributions to his school and, most importantly, Sunmarke School’s children. In a way Mr Summers encapsulates the heart of The Top Schools Awards this year in our ambition to celebrate and evangelise the capacity of STEAM to change the world so that it can a better place for the future generations to come. Mr Summers teaches that we do not have to accept the world as it is when it is not working properly – we can repair it! We can re-invent it! And one thing that we found so inspiring is that Mr Summers is a Secondary teacher who has, in the most astonishing and inspirational ways, scaffolded all the wonders of STEAM down to the Primary children at Sunmarke School, creating in the youngest ones, a generation of students which, under his teaching, are filled with ambition ignited by imaginations set free.
Mr. Summers brings over two decades of teaching experience to Sunmarke School drawn from his teaching of Design, Technology and Art in the United Kingdom. He has brought and combined all his skills in teaching graphic design, product design and woodwork, with his passion for The Arts, to bring STEAM in all its wonders alive for young children. He has transformed the phenomenal STEAM Centre at Sunmarke into a giant engine of the imagination filled to bursting with real solutions to make human life meaningful, hope-filled and happy.
Mr Summers studied Exhibition Design in the U.K. He then went on to complete a PGCE in Art & Design at Birmingham where he trained in multiple year groups from key stage 3-5. Mr Summers teaching extends to all aspects of design and technology which include graphics, woodwork, product design and electronics. During the last 20 years he has gained extensive experience of teaching key stages 3, 4 and 5.
The school told us:
“Mr Summers has such a caring nature and infectious passion for the subject. He builds respectful relationships and encourages, and inspire, the designers of the future.”
The famous House that Beebo Built – one filled with inventions including a magically unfolding staircase to the stars themselves. Many say that Mr Summers lives in such a house hidden somewhere in Dubai….
But Mr Summer’s story is even more remarkable – and magical. Mr Summers is an inventor. He is also a little like Beebo, the famous hero of children’s literature, who, with his friend, built all sorts of contraptions, including a staircase to the stars, to change the world. Yes. Mr Summers is an inventor no less! Can you imagine! He has built things so diverse, from a travel flat-pack speaker, to a firework sparkler extinguisher! Whatever next! One invention was actually developed through the iterative design process resulting in the product being manufactured in China. This real-life experience of manufacturing a product is something Mr Summers shares with the children so that they know that they too can make things that change everything around them. They can be the difference. And Mrs Summer cares passionately about Nature and the environment – he makes handmade, bespoke beautiful wooden creations using 100% reclaimed & recycled materials. You can begin so just how completely magical for children Mr Summers is…. The location of his workshop where he designs and makes all his many inventions is of course absolutely Top Secret!
Sometimes, just sometimes, in Education, you meet a teacher who changes absolutely everything.
Beyond our wildest imagination, Mr Jamie Summers, through his extraordinary teaching of STEAM, has been able to inspire and capture everybody’s hearts and minds at Sunmarke School.
Mr Jamie Summers truly deserves to win the accolade of absolutely outstanding achievement in Primary Teaching in UAE Education at The Top Schools Awards 2023 – 2024.”
Dr Neil Hopkin. Executive Headteacher. Sunmarke School.
Mr Summers uses something called the Kaizen Method of teaching. It is quite complicated, but you can learn more about it here. The gist of it is that children’s learning is structured through a series of steps from finding a problem that needs a solution, then understanding truly that problem and what sorts of solutions would work – and then, finally, building the solutions themselves. It is like the Beginning, Middle and End of a story book. It’s a phenomenal way of teaching, and living life too, in so many ways – but Mr Summer injects into the methodology the imagination, creativity and ability to inspire children that you simply cannot learn in books. They adore him.
There are so many example of the joy he has brought to his children – and the real impact he has made on their learning, but one Year 6 Project stands out for engaging almost every aspect of STEAM teaching. Essentially the project was designed to focus on the importance of being healthy and eating well. Working in small teams, the children developed prototypes of their solutions and then brought these to life through a vast array of activities including CAD – CAM, Photography, Film, Baking, Packaging & Marketing… the list was as long as the young minds and their inspiration. Mr Summers contribution “made the project” according to his peers.
This is a teacher too, who is adored by his colleagues. He has flooded the school with ambition, passion, inspiration, love of learning, inquisitiveness and the so important reminder of how utterly important teachers are. Teacher are the centre of the universe. They must be seen as such…because they guide and make possible the extraordinary futures of all our children before them.
The feedback we have received for Mr Summers is so moving. We were flooded with parents and teachers who wanted to share with us just how special he is. This is one of those teachers, those rare sparkling stars in the darkest night sky, that you always remember from your school days – the one that made you adore school, learning… and life. Some say that Mr Summers is the Tony Stark of the teaching world; that he has an Iron Man suit hidden away for special occasions. Others say he is really the brains behind Q and all his inventions for Mr Bond. We think he is much more important than either. There certainly can be no more deserving and outstanding recipient of the Top Schools Award for Best Primary Teacher in the United Arab Emirates 2023 – 2024 than the wonderful, talented, humane and very lovely Pied Piper of STEAM, and inventor of Hope, at Sunmarke School Dubai – Mr Jamie Summers.
Award Presentation
Best-Primary-School-Teacher-Jamie-Summers-Winner-Certificate
The Top Schools Award for Best Primary School Teacher in the United Arab Emirates 2023 – 2024 will be presented to Jamie Summers, Teacher of STEAM, Sunmarke School Dubai at a special Breakfast Celebration at The Emirates Golf Club on the morning of 16th November 2023. At the event the recipient of The Top Schools Awards 2023 – 2024 for Outstanding Contribution to Education will be revealed.
Historic winners of the Outstanding Contribution to Education in the UAE Award include H.E. Dr. Abdulla Al Karam, Director General of the Knowledge and Human Development Authority, recognised for his era defining leadership of Education in Dubai as a force for good; and the Varkey Family, for their instrumental role in shaping education in the UAE, and ensuring the life chances for generations of children, following the founding of GEMS Education in 1959.
Our Finalists.
Our extraordinary Finalists and those schools and teachers which have achieved outstandingly in so many ways for children in the Best Early Years Teacher category follow. Each of the following Primary teachers are recognised for their profound contribution to the profession of Primary years teaching in UAE Education:
Josh Brain, Year 6 Teacher & Mathematics Curriculum Leader, GEMS Wellington International School
Web: https://www.wellingtoninternationalschool.com
KHDA: Outstanding
Review: https://schoolscompared.com/all-through/gems-wellington-international-school-al-sufouh/
Review: https://whichschooladvisor.com/uae/school-review/gems-wellington-international-school-dubai
Sonali Gupta, Grade 5 Coordinator and Teacher, Dubai International Academy Al Barsha
Web: https://www.diabarsha.com
KHDA: Good with Very Good and Outstanding Features
Review: https://whichschooladvisor.com/uae/school-review/dubai-international-academy-al-barsha
Daniel Grindrod, Head of Primary Science & Year 6 Teacher, Nord Anglia International School Dubai
Web: http://www.nordangliaeducation.com/nas-dubai/
KHDA: Outstanding
Review: https://whichschooladvisor.com/uae/school-review/nord-anglia-international-school-dubai
Review: https://schoolscompared.com/all-through/nord-anglia-international-school-dubai-al-barsha/
Tabassum Zahid, Teacher of Arabic and Islamic, Raffles World Academy
KHDA: Very Good with Outstanding Features
Review: https://schoolscompared.com/all-through/raffles-world-academy-umm-suqeim-3/
Review: https://whichschooladvisor.com/uae/school-review/raffles-world-academy
A final note.
The Top Schools Awards takes over a year to produce. It engages with parents, students educators and educationalists over countless months, and the work invested in these Awards is the stuff of sleepless nights and deeply felt responsibility. We produce these Awards to celebrate our amazing schools, our magnificent teachers – who are the centre of the universe, our school leaders, whose lives will be judged by their impact on children, and the amazing students that they build a future for. These Awards are only about recognising this – in a world in which our schools and educators have far, far too little recognition. If on exploring these Awards you do one single thing, it should be to reach out to each and every one and thank them for all they do, each and every one of our schools, teachers and school leaders. You have absolutely no idea how much that would mean.
© SchoolsCompared.com. A WhichMedia Group publication. 2023 – 2024. All rights reserved.
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