Teacher from Jewish primary school in Edgware wins national magazine award
Gemma Blaker, of Beit Shvidler Primary School is named by The Week Junior as its Teacher of the Week following record number of nominations by students
A teacher from a Jewish primary school in Edgware has won a national award for ‘Teacher of the Week’.
Gemma Blaker, of Beit Shvidler Primary School, received the accolade from ‘The Week Junior’, a national magazine for children, after pupils submitted the highest number of nominations in the award’s history.
Mrs Blaker is a Year 1 form teacher and head of learning and curriculum. She has been with the school for three years.
Speaking to Jewish News, she said she had “been overwhelmed by the response to this award.”

Mrs Blaker was praised for her efforts to make learning interesting and relevant, taking her young pupils on local walking trips and sharing her passion for reading by setting up book clubs and creating reading challenges.
Young pupil six-year-old Jessica Dysch, one of the children who nominated her teacher, told local Times-Series newspaper “It’s amazing, it’s phenomenal. Mrs Blaker is fun. She turns everything into a game. She did a book fair and she had a cool T-shirt saying ‘It’s a good day to do lots of reading’.”
Thank you for helping to make Jewish News the leading source of news and opinion for the UK Jewish community. Today we're asking for your invaluable help to continue putting our community first in everything we do.
For as little as £5 a month you can help sustain the vital work we do in celebrating and standing up for Jewish life in Britain.
Jewish News holds our community together and keeps us connected. Like a synagogue, it’s where people turn to feel part of something bigger. It also proudly shows the rest of Britain the vibrancy and rich culture of modern Jewish life.
You can make a quick and easy one-off or monthly contribution of £5, £10, £20 or any other sum you’re comfortable with.
100% of your donation will help us continue celebrating our community, in all its dynamic diversity...
Engaging
Being a community platform means so much more than producing a newspaper and website. One of our proudest roles is media partnering with our invaluable charities to amplify the outstanding work they do to help us all.
Celebrating
There’s no shortage of oys in the world but Jewish News takes every opportunity to celebrate the joys too, through projects like Night of Heroes, 40 Under 40 and other compelling countdowns that make the community kvell with pride.
Pioneering
In the first collaboration between media outlets from different faiths, Jewish News worked with British Muslim TV and Church Times to produce a list of young activists leading the way on interfaith understanding.
Campaigning
Royal Mail issued a stamp honouring Holocaust hero Sir Nicholas Winton after a Jewish News campaign attracted more than 100,000 backers. Jewish Newsalso produces special editions of the paper highlighting pressing issues including mental health and Holocaust remembrance.
Easy access
In an age when news is readily accessible, Jewish News provides high-quality content free online and offline, removing any financial barriers to connecting people.
Voice of our community to wider society
The Jewish News team regularly appears on TV, radio and on the pages of the national press to comment on stories about the Jewish community. Easy access to the paper on the streets of London also means Jewish News provides an invaluable window into the community for the country at large.
We hope you agree all this is worth preserving.