We are incredibly proud to announce that Allegra School’s Learning Support Team has been named the 2026 Australian Teacher Aide Team of the Year.
The national award, announced on Thursday 3 September during Australian Teacher Aide Appreciation Week, recognises outstanding education support teams from schools across Australia and celebrates the extraordinary contribution teacher aides make to student learning, wellbeing and school communities.
For Allegra, this is an incredibly special achievement.
Our Learning Support Team works at the very heart of our school. Every day, they work alongside teachers, wellbeing staff and students to create the conditions in which young people feel safe enough to learn, confident enough to try and supported enough to succeed.
Now, that work has been recognised on the national stage.
Australia’s Teacher Aide Team of the Year
The 2026 Australian Teacher Aide of the Year Awards attracted nominations from State, Catholic and Independent schools across Australia, recognising education support professionals making a positive difference to student learning and wellbeing.
After first being selected as a NSW State Finalist, Allegra’s Learning Support Team went on to receive the highest national honour, being named the 2026 Australian Teacher Aide Team of the Year. The award organisers describe State Finalists as representing “the very best of education support” within their respective states.
Our award-winning team is:
- Amber Van Dartel
- Emma Cameron
- Fernando Caceda
- Jayden O’Shannessy
- Joanne Conway
- Reggie Frost
- Richard Raward
- Stephanie Pannell
The team was nominated by Kellie Green, Allegra’s Leader of Student Strategy & Support, in recognition of their collective contribution to our students and school community.
What the judges recognised
This is not simply an award for being caring, enthusiastic or hardworking, although our team is certainly all of those things.
Nominations for the Australian Teacher Aide of the Year Awards are assessed against three significant criteria:
- Positive impact on student learning and wellbeing
- Commitment to professional growth
- Collaboration with colleagues to support learning and teaching
The criteria are aligned with the Australian Teaching Assistant Professional Standards, an evidence-based national framework encompassing professional knowledge, professional practice and professional engagement.
That makes this recognition particularly meaningful. It acknowledges not only what our Learning Support Team does, but the quality, professionalism and impact of how they do it.
In announcing Allegra as the national winner, Australian Teacher Aide specifically recognised the team’s exceptional contribution to student learning, wellbeing and belonging within a special assistance school environment.
The award announcement highlighted the team’s work supporting young people who may have experienced barriers including anxiety, trauma, school refusal or disengagement from mainstream education, and the importance our team places on relationships and emotional safety as the foundations for learning.
It also recognised the breadth of their work across Allegra, including:
- daily targeted reading interventions
- personalised classroom adjustments
- student wellbeing programs
- vocational learning
- practical and life-skills opportunities
- trauma-informed approaches
- neurodiversity-affirming practice
- building student confidence and independence
- ongoing professional learning, and
- close collaboration with teachers to create consistent and inclusive learning environments.
The national announcement also specifically acknowledged the substantial growth in student reading ability supported by the team’s targeted literacy work.
At Allegra, learning support is not an “extra”
One of the things that makes this award so significant is that it reflects a philosophy deeply embedded within Allegra.
Our Learning Support Officers are not simply additional adults in a classroom.
They are educators.
They are part of the teaching team.
They observe, adapt, encourage, prompt, model, question and scaffold. They notice when a student needs something explained differently. They know when to provide support and, equally importantly, when to step back so a young person can discover that they are capable of doing something independently.
They help students regulate when learning feels overwhelming. They reinforce skills introduced by teachers. They support literacy and numeracy development. They assist young people to navigate social situations, develop confidence and participate in opportunities beyond the classroom.
And often, they are the person quietly standing beside a student during a moment that may appear small to everybody else, but is enormous to that young person.
For students who have not always experienced success at school, those moments matter.
Relationships create the conditions for learning
At Allegra, we know that learning and wellbeing cannot be separated.
A young person who does not feel safe, connected or understood is unlikely to take the risks required for learning.
That is why relationships are central to the way our Learning Support Team works.
Our LSOs invest time in knowing students as individuals: their strengths, interests, triggers, goals, learning needs and the strategies that help them succeed.
But importantly, support is never about creating dependence.
The ultimate goal is greater student agency and independence.
The best support often becomes less visible over time as students develop the skills, confidence and self-belief to advocate for themselves, attempt challenging work, manage setbacks and participate more independently in learning and in life.
That is an incredibly skilled balancing act, and our team does it every day.
The power of collaboration
The word team in this award is particularly important.
No single person creates the outcomes we see at Allegra.
Our Learning Support Officers work collaboratively with teachers, our wellbeing team, school leaders, external professionals and, most importantly, students themselves.
Information is shared. Strategies are refined. Adjustments change as student needs change. Staff reflect on what is working, identify what is not and try again.
Australian Teacher Aide’s professional standards specifically recognise that effective teaching-assistant practice depends on strong professional knowledge, effective practice and professional engagement, including the ability to work collaboratively with teaching teams.
This is exactly what our team demonstrates.
Their knowledge of our students gives teachers invaluable information about learning, engagement and wellbeing. Teachers provide direction around curriculum, learning intentions and pedagogy. Wellbeing staff contribute specialist knowledge and support. Together, the team creates an environment in which students experience consistency rather than a collection of disconnected interventions.
And students feel that difference.
Professional learning matters
Another significant element of the national award is its focus on professional growth.
The role of a Learning Support Officer is highly skilled and continues to evolve.
Supporting young people effectively requires far more than goodwill. It requires knowledge of learning, disability, neurodiversity, behaviour, regulation, trauma-informed practice, literacy, communication, child safety and student wellbeing.
It also requires reflective practice.
Our Learning Support Team actively engages in professional learning and brings that learning back into classrooms, continually refining how we support students.
Australian Teacher Aide describes its professional standards as a framework designed to support both the performance and professional growth of teaching assistants, improve role clarity and help teachers and teaching assistants work together more effectively.
Being recognised against those standards reinforces something we strongly believe at Allegra: education support staff are education professionals, and investment in their professional growth directly benefits students.
An award that belongs to our students too
While the trophy will have Allegra’s name on it, this achievement is also a celebration of our students.
Our young people teach us constantly.
They challenge us to rethink traditional approaches to education. They remind us that one strategy will never work for every learner. They demonstrate what becomes possible when schools stop asking young people to fit a predetermined model and instead start asking what conditions will allow that student to succeed.
Every reading milestone, successful work placement, completed assessment, returned day at school, new friendship, difficult conversation navigated, goal achieved or moment of unexpected confidence contributes to the story behind this award.
The work of our Learning Support Team matters because those moments matter.
Recognition during Australian Teacher Aide Appreciation Week
There could hardly be a more appropriate time for the announcement.
The winners were revealed on 3 September as part of Australian Teacher Aide Appreciation Week 2026, held from 31 August to 4 September.
This week is an opportunity for schools across Australia to recognise the professionals whose work can sometimes happen away from the spotlight but whose influence is felt throughout classrooms and school communities.
This year, we have an especially big reason to celebrate.
As the 2026 national winners, Allegra’s Learning Support Team will receive an engraved award plaque, individual recognition certificates and the Australian Teacher Aide winner badge, along with a 12-month school membership with Australian Teacher Aide.
But as wonderful as those things are, the greatest significance is what the award represents.
It is external recognition of something our students and staff already know.
This team is exceptional.
A proud moment for a regional school
There is also something particularly special about seeing a team from a small regional school in Coffs Harbour recognised at this level.
Innovation and excellence in education are not confined to metropolitan schools or large systems.
Every day, extraordinary work is happening in regional schools.
Our team has helped build an educational environment designed specifically for young people who need something different from school. They demonstrate what can happen when skilled educators are given the opportunity to know students deeply, work collaboratively and respond flexibly to individual need.
To see that work acknowledged nationally is an incredibly proud moment for Allegra.
Congratulations to an extraordinary team
To Amber, Emma, Fernando, Jayden, Jo, Reggie, Richard and Stephanie, congratulations.
Thank you for every conversation before class, every reading session, every quiet encouragement, every adjustment made without fuss, every moment you have advocated for a student, every time you have helped somebody regulate, every difficult day you have returned the next morning ready to try again, and every occasion on which you have seen potential in a young person before they were able to see it themselves.
Thank you also to Kellie Green for taking the time to document and nominate the extraordinary work of this team.
Awards do not create excellent practice.
They recognise it.
And today, we are incredibly proud that the work happening every day inside our little school in Coffs Harbour has been recognised as the very best in Australia.
Congratulations to Allegra School’s Learning Support Team, the 2026 Australian Teacher Aide Team of the Year.
We could not be prouder.
Read the official Australian Teacher Aide announcement: 2026 Australian Teacher Aide of the Year Awards