A TEACHER from Wath who wants to tackle greater challenges in education has been celebrated with an international award - after travelling across the globe to teach.

Stephen Priest, 53, began his journey teaching internationally all the way back in 1999 and since then has seen his life change immensely.

Now, after 25 years of hard work, the principal at the British International School of Tblisi, Georgia, has been crowned the 2024 Global Winner at the Pearson International School Teacher Awards.

He told the Chronicle. “In the late 1990s I was working in Doncaster.

“I’d got my season ticket for Barnsley and was able to see them in the Premier League.

“But I knew I wanted something different and a new challenge in my life - someone told me about working abroad and so in 1999 I went to Germany.

“Then I went to Kathmandu in Nepal in 2004 - there I met my wife and we had our son.

“I lived through the major earthquake while we were there.

“Then in 2017 we all came to Georgia.”

While Stephen admits he’s a ‘bit too modest’ to go in depth about why he was awarded for his work in Georgia, he does believe that they’ve done lots of work to ensure the school grows.

“I’ve received nominations from parents, students, staff and people I know from other international schools that we’ve worked with,” he added.

“Reading some of the nominations they look back to all the work we did in Covid.

“The parents of some of our students passed so we did lots of work to support them - but then it was also about keeping the school going online.

“Another thing was our response to the war in Ukraine - we’ve got Ukrainian children here and Russian kids whose families have left the country due to the war.

“There’s been lots of work to support the people affected.

“We’ve grown as a school and have kids now who are going to some of the best universities in the world.”

As Stephen’s work has allowed him to travel across the globe, and live in a variety of exotic locations, it may come as a surprise to find out that he actually isn’t a fan of travelling.

“I don’t like moving.

“Thankfully I’ve had it pretty stable - I spent five years in Germany, 13 years in Nepal and now seven in Georgia.

“Most international teachers are moving about all the time.

“I’m heading to Cairo later this year - it’ll be a new challenge, but that’s what I want after all this time in Georgia.”