Amy a teaching assistant with star quality

She picked up the title of South East Teaching Assistant of the Year at the regional Teaching Awards ceremony at the Old Ship Hotel, Brighton on Wednesday.

The special school will pick up a prize package worth 3,000 including a 2,000 cash grant and a 1,000 computer package. Amy herself was given a cheque for 500 to spend on her professional development.

Her testimony from the judges said: "Amy is a communicator par excellence. She has taken the skills of signing and Makaton and created a niche of best practice. This has proven so successful she now advises on signs and symbol use to fellow teaching assistants and teachers.

"Her expertise will be even more in demand when the school opens a new professional training centre currently under construction, and she can share her special talents with parents and other local people to acquire more formal signing and non-verbal communication training.

"A lifelong learner, she is formalising her knowledge in a Professional Educational Studies degree course for which she studies in her own time.

"Amy has a natural rapport with students and energises her pupils. She also runs a trampolining group in her own time."