One teacher certainly is top of the class after scooping an award beating off competition from thousands of nominees.

Cecilia Chantaduc, 32, a French teacher at The Forest Academy in Harbourer Road, Hainault, was given the secondary school award for Teacher of the Year in London and the south-east out of 24,000 nominations.

She has been teaching at the school for the past 10 years and said she is so successful because she expects all of her students to do well.

Mrs Chantaduc said: “Some of my teachers when I was at school were very inspiring and it made me want to do the same thing.

“It’s hard work and is about believing in all the students that they have the potential to get the best marks.”

Her teaching methods including finding clever ways for students to remember words like rhymes or links, as well as different body movements to illustrate vocabulary.

Mrs Chantaduc said: “We do a lot of games and lots of movements known as kinetic learning, anything that gets the students active about their learning and helps them to remember.

“We link words with each other.”

She also shows how French and learning languages is important and relevant to the students’ lives.

“The students are out harshest critics so you have to change the way you teach,” she said. “You have to make it relevant to them. Languages open up your mind to different situations and you learn about how your own language works.”

She said she was very pleased when she found out she had been given the award which was presented on national Thank a Teacher Day on Friday.

Mrs Chantaduc said: “I was very surprised at being nominated and all the students and parents have been very nice and said very moving things.”

The Pearson Teaching Awards are given out annually and were established in 1999 by Lord Puttnam to highlight the life-changing impact inspirational teachers have.

The selection panel said Mrs Chantaduc was a pleasure to watch. They said: “She is changing lives.”