It’s the end of another frenetic year in Westminster. And in time-honoured fashion (or, actually, for the first time), ’tis the season for the Simons’ (like the Oscars, but better and more coveted).

• Ex-Education Secretary of the Year: A close contest, this one, with commendations for Michael “I could be leader” Gove (pictured, inset) and Nicky “Trousergate” Morgan. But in the end, it’s a win for Strictly’s newly sleek Ed “Glitter” Balls.
• Party-on-Party Fight of the Year: NiMo is commended again here, thanks to her anti-grammar growling. But the award goes to Labour’s Angela Rayner and Lucy Powell, for a slight air of tension in the first couple of months of the former’s role as shadow education secretary following the latter’s resignation. Sir David Carter, national schools commissioner, and Ofsted chief Sir Michael Wilshaw are also recognised for an entry in the rarer Officialon-Official Spat category.
• Education Bandwagon of the Year: A clear win for the Olympics. Schools should all learn lessons from Team GB’s successes. What those lessons are, of course, differs wildly. But, uncannily, they always seem to accord with the beliefs of the organisation making the claim.
• Let’s Call a Spade a Square Digging Tool Award: A late but strong entry from the Independent Schools Council, which rebadged “Please pay for these empty school places we can’t sell privately” as “We can help you, government!”
• The Peter Lauener Award for Workload of the Year: This award, named after the man running three government agencies, is split between Neil “If it moves, the select committee will hold an inquiry into it” Carmichael and Nick “Why do we need any other ministers anyway?” Gibb. The latter added school funding into his giant ministerial portfolio this year.
• Controversial Academy or Academy Chain of the Year (sponsored by Michaela Community School): This award goes to Durand Academy Trust. I should stress that I have absolutely no idea of the truth or otherwise of the various allegations going on there. Largely because, like everyone else in education, I can’t make head nor tail of it.
• Education Word of the Year: “Challenge.” That’s what the government freely accepts is happening with teacher supply (“Crisis? Let’s call it a challenge”).
• The “We Barely Knew You” Award: Labour MP Pat Glass, who served as shadow education secretary for all of 30 hours. Still, at least she wasn’t accused of any U-turns. Which brings us on to the biggie...
• Government policy U-Turn of the Year (sponsored by the National Teaching Service): It’s been a golden year for these. Nominations included universal academisation, Year 7 resits and, indeed, an entire government White Paper. But the winner by a short nose is the EYFS baseline assessments, as it turns out that we can’t reliably compare between three different tests to see how small children are doing.

And so, that’s our awards. Next year will be tricky, with major challenges around funding and teacher supply. So, totally unlike this year then.

Jonathan Simons is a former head of education in the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit under Gordon Brown and David Cameron