What awaits the participants of the contest “Teacher of the Year of Belarus” in the superfinal – the organizers revealed interesting details

Comprehensive written work will be one of the main innovations of the competition “Teacher of the Year – 2026”. About the details of this test and the surprises of the superfinal was told by the director of the Institute of Professional Development of Educational Workers of the State Educational Institution "Academy of National Education" - deputy chairman of the jury of the professional skills competition "Teacher of the Year of the Republic of Belarus - 2026" Inessa Zubrilin, writes sb.by.

The speaker explained:

- Due to the fact that the nominations have changed, the program of the competition itself has certainly changed, the competition events have changed at all stages. For example, a comprehensive written work will be conducted for the first time. This is done purposefully to assess the professional, primarily methodological competence of the teacher. Self-presentation, master class, even a lesson in an unfamiliar class, which gets after the draw, are still competitive events, in preparation for which their team can help colleagues (teachers come to the competition in whole teams). - Author's note. And a comprehensive writing assignment is one-on-one with the task block we have prepared for them.

This block will include: the solution of the pedagogical situation according to a certain algorithm - they will be different for all nominations; the task of creating a situational problem: a paragraph of the textbook will be proposed, and it is necessary to present this problem according to specific criteria and according to a certain template; the evaluation of the written work with its argumentation, the expert lists:

This is a march-throw of tasks that are directly related to the competencies that a teacher should possess today.

Behind each finalist is a huge team of methodists, his senior colleagues, who prepare, suggest how best. And here will be exclusively individual work, the jury will see the essence of the contestants themselves without the advice of mentors.

This year, the representation of the jury is very large: among the jury members, about 70 percent are former participants in the competition, winners in various nominations, including the winners of this competition of previous years.

- The jury is now divided into two categories – the jury in the nominations and the superjury, said Inessa. - There are nominations homogeneous and complex. For example, in the nomination “Chemistry – biology” this year were only chemists. And there are national nominations – music, physical culture and health, labor training, pre-conscription training. There are at least three specialists in each subject included in the composition. I am a foreign language teacher and I am the head of the foreign language category. This year we have four English teachers, two Chinese teachers and a Spanish teacher, so the jury in the nomination is nine people, three for each language. All nominations. The chairmen in all nominations are graduated people - practitioners with a scientific degree or representatives of pedouniversity. The jury of the superfinal includes the chairmen of all the jury in the nominations - they saw the contestants at all stages.

Inessa Zubrilina shared the details that are planned in the superfinal:

- As for the super-final, it is a briefing and a mini-lesson on stage. We understand that the winner is a person who will attract attention, including the media, for a long time. He should be ready for a large flow of questions, he should have a personal civic position, the ability to reasonably express his point of view, respond to various issues, regardless of the audience, in front of the camera or without it. Therefore, in the superfinal we evaluate more personal qualities and readiness to lead the pedagogical community.

Traditionally, nine laureates will learn the theme of the mini-lesson on stage the day before. In the role of children will be those contestants who are not among the winners. The improvised class will feature nine mini-lessons united by one theme, but the jury expects to see each subject accent.

- If we talk about the trends that we see from competition to competition, it is an emphasis on functional literacy, meta-subject competencies, on the development of emotional intelligence. This can be seen in experience, and in master classes, and in lessons. There are classic themes - project activity, critical thinking, interactive learning, learning in cooperation. Everything new is the well-forgotten old. But the live interaction of the teacher-student, the purely human approach, the acceptance of the child as he is, the personality-oriented view is the classic that should remain unchanged. The Ministry of Education told how unique the current season of the contest “Teacher of the Year of the Republic of Belarus”