A BLAENAVON teaching assistant has won a top award in this year’s Pearson Teaching Awards.

Yasmin Gedney, who is a teaching assistant at Blaenavon Heritage Community School, won the award for Teaching Assistant of the Year.

Ms Gedney will now join the other winning teachers from across the UK at a ceremony which will be televised this autumn.

Ms Gedney was given the winning title after impressing the judges with her professionalism and great care for the pupils, treating each one as an individual educationally, personally and socially.

Ms Gedney, who has worked at the school for 22 years, was nominated for the award by parent Nicola Matthews and her daughter Seren. She said: “I feel honoured and delighted to have received this prestigious award. I’ve been privileged to have worked in such a rewarding profession and am totally overwhelmed that Mrs Matthews and Seren have nominated me.

“I absolutely love my job and I do it because I love the children.”