Two UK schools are among 15 vying for a share of a $250,000 (£220,000) prize pot, set up to recognise the “world’s best schools”.
Dunoon Grammar School in Argyll and Bute, and the London Academy of Excellence in Newham are each finalists in the World’s Best School Prizes, run by T4 Education.
The 15 schools are split across five categories, with prizes for community collaboration, environmental action, innovation, overcoming adversity and supporting healthy lives.
Four UK schools were initially named on a 50-school shortlist but the number has since been whittled down.
Dunoon Grammar, a state secondary school, has been named on the shortlist for the community collaboration award, while state sixth form the London Academy of Excellence is shortlisted for “supporting healthy lives”.
A public advisory vote is now to be held online, which will be given to a panel of judges - including Lord Knight, former minister of state for schools and learning, and Dame Alison Peacock, chief executive of the Chartered College of Teaching - to help them decide on the eventual winners.
Voting is open here until 2 October.
T4 education said that Dunoon Grammar School had been using its skill-based courses “to turn around the fortunes of its predominantly rural local area, which has suffered a brain drain, with an exodus of young people leaving to seek opportunities elsewhere”.
The London Academy of Excellence’s “trailblazing wellbeing programme” was also praised.
The winners of the award will be announced on 19 October, with a total prize fund of $250,000 to be shared between the five winners.
