One of the NAEO’s key aims is to recognise excellence, dedication and commitment to the exams officer role
Nominations for the Exams Officer of the Year 2025 award are now open!
Click here to nominate your exams officer now
NAEO Exams Officer of the Year 2025
One of the NAEO’s key aims is to recognise excellence, dedication and commitment to the exams officer role. Fundamental to this is our annual Exams Officer of the Year Award.
Our Exams Officer of the Year Award, introduced to honour achievement, and raise the profile of examinations officers, is now in its fourth year!
Nominations for The Exams Officer of the Year Award 2025 have now opened and nominations will be accepted until the closing date of 31 May 2025. The awards ceremony will take place at the NAEO Summer Conference 2025 at the Kia Oval on Monday 30 June 2025.
Nominees for the award must have delivered excellence in their role in the 2024/2025 academic year. Achievement of, or working towards the Exams Officer Professional Standards, underpins the Exams Officer of the Year Award and working towards this/achievement of the Standards in 2024/25 is an advantage to a nomination.
The annual award is designed to recognise exams officers who have delivered excellence in their role in one or more areas, for example within your centre, or within the wider exams community.
Who can make a nomination?
Nominations can be made by a peer, colleague or senior leader who has a working relationship with the nominee.
There is no limit on the number of forms which can be submitted for one nominee by colleagues/peers and can be from within or outside the nominee's centre.
As well as the nominee's line manager/members of senior leadership team, nominations are encouraged from any colleagues within the nominee's centre - this may include the special educational needs co-ordinator, a head of year, invigilators, etc.
Nominations from exams officers/colleagues outside of the nominee's centre are also encouraged to evidence the positive influence and/or the wider impact of the nominee's work. This may include members of network groups, local exams officers who have received support from the nominee, or colleagues within an academy trust/partner schools where support has been delivered.
The Exams Officer of the Year Framework
For the judges to make informed decisions we need examples of how your colleague has delivered excellence, so we have created a framework of categories, and questions, to help you tell us about your nominee.
We have suggested three categories: Impact, Support and Innovation.
Please feel free to give evidence in as many categories as you wish. The more details you can give, the better we can understand the achievement your exams officer has made in the exams community. There is also the option to give your Own Evidence if the categories we have chosen do not cover everything that you want to say.
Here are some suggestions on how ‘excellence’ can be defined in 2024/2025:
Impact: Demonstrating positive change within centre or beyond.
Enhancing the reputation of exams within your centre:
- What positive impact has your exams officer made on your centre community? Please give an example
- How has your exams officer supported other staff within your centre’s community?
- How has your exams officer increased the profile of exams within your centre?
- How has your exams officer fostered a good working environment?
Supporting exams colleagues in the wider community:
- Has your exams officer supported other exams officers in your local area? How have they done this?
- Has your exams officer worked to support the exams community at a wider level? What have they done?
And/or
Innovation: Devising innovative processes which promote efficiency and effectiveness and/or creating procedures which guarantee the integrity and security of the examination system, and a 'level playing field' for candidates, within their centre:
- Has your exams officer made a positive change on the delivery of exams in your centre? Please explain how they have achieved this.
- Has your exams officer worked to develop new methods of working to enhance efficiency? Please give examples.
- How has your exams officer improved the integrity and security of exams within your centre? Please give examples.
And/or
Support: Having a positive influence amongst others:
- How has your exams officer worked empathetically with students in your centre? Please give examples.
- How do they deal with exam anxiety within your student community?
- How has your exams officer supported students with additional requirements, or differences?
- How has your exams officer supported parents in this process?
- How has your exams officer raised the profile of exams with students in your centre? How has this improved the exams office’s visibility, for example an open-door policy or via poster displays, assemblies or parents’ evenings?
And/or
Own Evidence: other evidence that you feel demonstrates excellence but is not captured in the categories of Impact, Innovation or Support.
The Judges
All nominations will be reviewed by the Nominations Team at the NAEO and a short-list will be created for consideration by our expert judges. Our judging panel is made up of representatives from key stakeholders including the exam awarding bodies . The judging panel will agree upon the overall winner and runners up who will be contacted once the judging has been completed.
Prize Winners
Our prize winners will be awarded with their prize(s) and presented with a Certificate of Achievement, to mark their continuing professional development, at our National Summer Conference 2025 at the Kia Oval, London on Monday 30 June 2025.
Prize winners will also be invited to participate in voluntary NAEO initiatives and contribute to, JCQ and awarding organisation, focus groups across the forthcoming academic year:
- Exams Officer of the Year - Certificate + £500 gift voucher
- Runners-up (2nd place) - Certificate + £250 gift voucher
- Runners-up (3rd place) - Certificate + £125 gift voucher
How do I nominate my Exams Officer of The Year?
Click here to nominate your exams officer now
To nominate your Exams Officer of The Year 2025 click here to access the link.
Here’s a guide to submitting your nomination, the instructions are also provided on the nomination form, to help you through the process when completing should you need:
- Enter your contact details as the Proposer
- Enter contact details for your Nominee
- Choose an evidence category from the drop down. This can be Impact, Innovation or Support
- Helpful suggestions on the criteria for each category are shown
- Enter your written evidence against the criteria for the category in the free text box provided
- Click ‘Next’
- Choosing one (1) evidence category is mandatory. Choosing more than one category is optional
- Once text is entered you can proceed to provide evidence for up to three (3) more categories, this includes providing your Own Evidence’ examples should you wish
- To add a second category simply select a new ‘Evidence Category’ from the drop down
- To select a third or fourth category of evidence simply select a new ‘Evidence Category’ from the drop down
- As you select a new ‘Evidence Category’ to complete, any text entered for the prior category will be stored so that you can return to, and revisit to review/amend at any point
- ‘Save nomination’ as you go along, we recommend you ‘Save nomination’ after entering a new Evidence Category
- After ‘Save nomination’ you can ‘Return to saved nomination’ at any point. This is handy if you are unable to complete in one go and want to return to your nomination later
- When you ‘Save nomination’ you will be issued with a code to apply for when you ‘Return to nomination’. To retrieve your saved form you must enter your email address and the code
- Once at least one (1) category has been evidenced you can move ‘To Final Stage’, here you will have the opportunity to review our Privacy Statement and finally ‘Submit’
- On submission you will receive an email to confirm your nomination. Your nominee will also receive a surprise email to advise them that they have been nominated for Exams Officer of the Year 2025!
If for any reason you don’t receive an email confirmation on submission, please do check your Junk/Spam
2025 nominations and shortlist
Nominations will be accepted until 31 May 2025.
The shortlist of ten finalists for the 2025 award will be published here in early June 2025.
Thank you for taking the time and effort to recognise your colleague and to help raise the profile of Examinations Officers.
We would also like to thank The Exams Office for supporting our Rewards and Awards programme by supplying all prizes and awards.
If you have any queries, questions or feedback on the Exams Officer of the Year 2025 process, please email nominations@thenaeo.org
NAEO Exams Officer of the Year 2024
In 2023/24, over 200 nominations were received for the award, from which a shortlist of ten exams officers (see below) were presented to a panel of awarding body representatives for consideration against the criteria detailed. Here are details of our winner, runners up and those shortlisted in 2023/24.
The winner of the 2024 award:
Kirsty Wilson - Exams Officer at The Cherwell School
The runners up in 2024:
John O'Meara - Exams Officer at Rickmansworth School
Katie Sebire - Exams Officer at Elizabeth College, Guernsey
2024 nominations shortlist
- Emma Bowden (The Thomas Audley Lord School)
- Kirsty Cavanagh (Eat That Frog CIC)
- Michaela Fox Makin (Bolton School - Boy's Division)
- Kelly Jobson (Bluecoat School)
- Gemma Nicholls (Harlow College)
- John O'Meara (Rickmansworth School)
- Katie Sebire (Elizabeth College)
- Gemma Tuck (Ely College)
- Kirsty Wilson (The Cherwell School)
- Laura West (Biddulph High School)
At the NAEO Summer Conference 2024, held at Leeds United Football Club, Leeds on 28 June, Kirsty Wilson was announced as the Exams Officer of the Year for 2024.
Kirsty, who serves as exams officer at The Cherwell School, Oxford, was presented with her certificate, and £500 of gift vouchers, by Jugjit Chima, CEO of the National Association of Examinations Officers at the Summer 2024 conference.
The Cherwell School is a secondary school with academy status and over 2000 students on roll.