Process
Friday 8 August 2025 | THE STAR EVENT CENTRE
Stage One – Nominations
A nationwide call for nominations will be conducted from February to March 2025 using The Educator’s online channels. Any individual or school operating in the Australian K-12 education industry is eligible to submit a nomination, either on their own behalf or for another individual or school.
Nominations should focus on achievements and results from the previous 12 months. All information contained in the entries that is marked confidential will be treated as such and not be released without permission of the entrant.
All nominations must be submitted via the official Australian Education Awards online portal and must be submitted on or before the final date of entry (14 March 2025). The Australian Education Awards team reserves the right to refuse any nominations submitted after this date.
Please note: The nomination process is completed in 1 step. Excellence awardees will not be required to provide further information at a later stage. All documents provided to the judging panel will be requested at the time of the nomination. Please allow extra time.
Stage Two – Research and selection of excellence awardees
The Australian Education Awards team will review the submissions and draw on industry knowledge and information gained through sister publication The Educator to indentify the outstanding schools and individuals in each category that will receive an “Excellence Award”.
Stage Three – Confirmation of excellence awardees
Once the research has been completed, excellence awardees will be selected in each category (except Australian School of the Year and Australian School Principal of the Year) and notified via e-mail. Excellence awardees will also be announced on The Educator’s website on 12 May. Excellence awardees for Australian School of the Year and Australian School Principal of the Year will comprise the winners of the other school and principal categories and will be announced at the event itself.
Stage Four – Judging
The Australian Education Awards team will send the shortlisted excellence awardee submissions to an independent panel of judges, comprising education industry leaders and senior representatives. Judges will be well known and well respected within the industry and their judgment will be impartial, balanced, incisive and fair. Any judge with a conflict of interest in a particular category will recuse themselves from judging that category. Judges will review the excellence awardee submissions and allocate a score for each excellence awardee. The excellence awardee with the highest score in each category once the judging process has been completed will be named the winner.