This year’s national Teaching Awards ceremony, held last Sunday at the Theatre Royal in London’s Drury Lane, was going to be a black tie affair - a suitable way to end, the organisers said, an unforgettable weekend for the 114 finalists and their guests. Wisely, perhaps, there was a change of mind before the invitations went out. Black ties - although some still chose all the trimmings - might be too suggestive of Hollywood glitz and Oscars glamour. Teaching isn’t glamorous: there’s no place for film star histrionics. But, said every national winner, it is important and rewarding. The huge audience for this Sunday’s BBC1 recording of the event - more than four million people watched last year - will understand why. It was a wonderful party - exciting, inspirational and, at times, moving.

So who are they, these modest and dedicated people, called on to the stage of London’s most famous theatre by Changing Rooms presenter Carol Smillie, to receive their awards from the likes of Michael Parkinson and Joanna Lumley, and turning to the audience and cameras to thank, invariably, their colleagues and their pupils?

They come from every region of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, nominated for outstanding achievement in one of 10 categories (see box, page 15). Regional panels of judges - people who really know schools - review the nominations and hear what local people as well as colleagues, pupils, governors and parents say about them. A regional awards ceremony with lots of positive local publicity follows - then a national judging panel goes through the same steps to select the national winners.

But in spite of the cachet (and the cash - the regional winners’ schools get pound;2,000 plus pound;1,000-worth of ICT equipment; the national prizes are worth pound;13,000 plus pound;9,000 of ICT equipment), the Teaching Awards Trust is not overwhelmed by nominations. There were “more than 1,000” in 1999, when the awards began, 1,500 last year, and “rather more than 1,500” this year.

Given the 32,000 primary and secondary schools to choose from, that’s not a high percentage, as Carolyn Taylor, the trust’s chief executive, cheerfully agrees. “It took years and years to undermine the morale of the profession. It will take us a year or two to turn that round. In that context, we think the response has been fantastic.”

Ted Wragg, professor of education at Exeter University, who chairs the national judges panel (and who is unremittingly hostile to the sort of educational gimmickry that critics claim the awards represent), agrees. “You’ve got to remember that, for heads especially, it isn’t easy to identify individuals as outstanding. There is a strong collegial culture in good schools that cuts against it, and this year particularly, with all the uncertainties of threshold applications, it was even more difficult.”

But he is convinced that the climate is changing. “What is striking this year is the way we’ve caught the imagination of the public. We had hundreds of mums and grannies - pupils, too - writing in for forms, telling us how wonderful this teacher is, or that classroom assistant. And what the judges have seen every year, and what the public has seen on television, is that they’re right. We need the reminder. There are lots of quite remarkable teachers around - and lots of cracking classroom assistants.”

He cites one of the award categories to support his point. “Take ‘work in the community’. There are 12 regional awards and one national winner. Yet almost every school I know is brilliant at it - for example, interviewing every single new five-year-old with their parents as a matter of course. They think it’s ordinary. The Teaching Awards are a long overdue celebration of the quality of our profession. Every school could make a nomination.”

But could they? In the Theatre Royal on Sunday evening you really had to wonder. Listening to what the national winners had achieved and were doing was uplifting, but also humbling. All right, these people aren’t unique, for year after year we hear of similar achievements, similar dedication. Surely, though, they are special people?

They say they’re not. Josie Adlard, for instance, of St Martin’s C of E infants school in Salisbury, named learning support assistant of the year for being “the cornerstone of our school community and very dear to us all”, says of her nomination: “I simply couldn’t believe it. I had no idea what was going on. ‘Why me?’ I asked. We work together, we’re a team, I play a part.”

Barbara Blaney, winner of the national award for excellence in special needs teaching for her work as head of learning support at Chalvedon school in Basildon, says the same. “I’m no different from other teachers. Most I know work just as hard as I do. The Teaching Awards are an opportunity for the public to understand that. My award is on behalf of teachers. The finalists are just a sample. It’s for all of us.”

Or listen to John King, named primary school teacher of the year for the energy, enthusiasm and flair he brings to his work as deputy head of Greswold primary school in Solihull. He describes his achievement as “a chance to show people what ordinary teachers do - to celebrate their success. Teaching isn’t an individual skill. You rely totally on your colleagues for ideas, support and feedback. The Teaching Awards provide all three. I’m sure schools will come to see this.”

Or to Barry Cooke, OBE, winner of the award for lifetime achievement for (in part) his work in leading Hyde technology school from nothing to national recognition. “The secret? Luck. A lot of luck. And taking on a school that can only go up. And building up a talented and happy team. Just that.”

But you know, when you meet the finalists and listen to their stories, that there is much, much more than that. Ms Adlard, for example, started, as so many support assistants do, as a parent helper. “I’d been a manager at Marks and Spencer. I knew nothing about schools and started by helping out. Then I became a dinner lady, and they asked me if I would help with a traveller child. And that’s where it started. I had found what I wanted to do. I learned that there’s always something you can bring out in every child, if you are patient, if you listen. Then I did the Open University training course, though I’d never been to college. And now I’m totally fulfilled, although I sometimes wonder about training as a teacher - if I’m not too old.” She laughs. “Mind you, I think the reports and things would kill me.”

Traveller children were a turning point for Barbara Blaney, too. Chalvedon was “the school round the corner”. Seventeen years ago she applied for a part-time job in support of traveller education, and from that beginning the school has built up a national reputation for its work with the traveller community. “They’re wonderful people. But they don’t trust us - they think our morals are appalling - and they are often deeply misunderstood. They’ll remain so until they are properly accepted in schools.”

From her work with travellers and Roma has come a more general concern for the education of refugees and, through a school branch of Young Amnesty, “a passionate care for human rights”. To bring these issues home to children, Barbara makes use in class of extracts from EastEnders. How appropriate, then, that it should be Michelle Ryan, youngest member of the show’s problematic Slater family, who presented her with her award.

John King was an international cross-country runner in his youth, and still jogs to school followed by scores of panting children. They call him the Pied Piper of Greswold, and parents cheer when they hear that he is to be their children’s teacher. He’s modest, in public almost shy, but he’s a brilliant teacher who uses humour and storytelling to support his pupils’ learning. His letters to parents (“May I wish you a happy new year and hope you all got what you wished for. Unfortunately I failed to find a Tracey Island but would like to thank all the children who took copious notes from Blue Peter on how to make one from a corn-flakes box and presented me with them first day backI”) are collectors’ items.

And Barry Cooke, in his last term before retirement, is a remarkable headteacher. Since 1982, he has shaped not only his school but the lives of countless children who have passed through it. There are 1,400 pupils and he knows them all by name. As his colleagues say, “he is always there”, and everybody - staff, pupils, parents, the local multi-ethnic community - respect him “by the bucketful”.

When you hear him speak, you get a sense of what makes him special. His philosophy is simple. “If you give people time and care, you get it back - with interest.” As for job satisfaction: “Name me another job where you can play for the staff in any position you like for as long as you want to, and get to take the penalties as well. And they pay you.”

What we learned about these four, during last week’s wonderful evening at the Theatre Royal, was that like the other winners they are all essentially “can-do” people. They have boundless confidence, not just in themselves, but in young people and their willingness and capacity to learn. They are also self-starters. As one of them says: “We really don’t need so much control, so many strategies and guidelines. The secret is to match your teaching to your children’s needs.” Most of all, we learned about the enjoyment they get from teaching. “It’s such a wonderful profession.” “It’s the best job in the world.” “I’ve had a wonderful career.” Or Josie Adlard, learning support assistant of the year: “I really am fulfilled. I’d love to be a teacher.”

Hundreds of people heard that message on Sunday and were moved by it. Millions more will see and hear it on television - and the other message, repeated by every winner, that there are thousands of superb teachers out there, unpraised and unsung. As a profession, Ted Wragg says, we are surely mature enough to recognise this, and to nominate our colleagues.

The Teaching Awards are what they say they are: a celebration of teaching, not of teachers. Nominations for 2002 open now. As Barry Cooke told the audience with typical Cheshire bluntness: “If you don’t put up, you might as well shut up.”

The Teaching Awards are run in partnership with principal sponsor BT. Associate sponsors this year include the Guardian, the Leadership Trust and Lloyds TSB. Teaching Awards 2001 will be shown on BBC1 this Sunday at 4.10pm. The 2002 awards will be officially launched during the programme. Next year anyone can enter a nomination - parents, pupils, heads, governors, teachers - by registering at www.teachingawards.com For more information, contact The Teaching Awards Trust, St Giles House, 1 Drury Lane, London WC2B 5RS