A newly qualified teacher at a school near Ipswich is up for a top UK award.

Bucklesham Primary School teacher Anna Euston, who teaches Year 3 and 4, was "shocked" to have been shortlisted along with seven others.

Tes, an education publication, formerly known as the Times Educational Supplement, will announce whether she has won the UK's new teacher of the year award on June 25.

Ms Euston studied at Canterbury Christ Church University before joining the school in September 2020, says she has never known anything different than the pandemic in her experience of teaching.

The 21-year-old had to cope with sending her pupils home at short notice for home learning back in January to some students self-isolating during the pandemic.

"It's been amazing how supportive my school has been," the teacher from Creeting Saint Mary added.

Ipswich Star: Anna Euston's class at Bucklesham Primary School, SuffolkAnna Euston's class at Bucklesham Primary School, Suffolk (Image: Michelle Mergard)

A colleague at Bucklesham Primary School Michelle Mergard put the "most wonderful teacher" up for the award.

Ms Mergard said: "She is fun, bubbly and great with the children. Everyone loves her, even the parents.

"Our headteacher can’t stop praising her on all her work and even steals her ideas for school projects.

"The classroom is bright and colourful. Anna comes up with exciting ways the children can get rewards, such as a warm and fuzzy jar, where the children add pom poms every time they do a good deed, resulting in a pizza party.

"We also have a mystery reward in class, every term, covered in post it notes with things the children need to achieve and one by one the mystery prize is revealed. Last term was slippers and hot chocolate day.

"There is also work to be proud of outside the classroom.

"Anna is always coming up with fun and exciting ways to get the children interested in their learning. Even with the most challenging start to her teaching career, not a day goes by where she doesn’t come in smiling and laughing.

"The support she has shown the children throughout all of the lockdowns has been second to none.

"She has also become one of my closest friends, from the first day we met, both in leopard print clothing, I knew we were going to get on so well."