The Minister's Awards
Every year up to 10 students from community languages schools are recognised for their hard work and excellence through the Minister's Awards for Excellence in Student Achievement.
Minister's Awards 2023
About the Minister's Awards
The Minister's Awards and certificates for students who are highly commended and commended, are presented at a special awards ceremony.
Your community language school can nominate one student only for each category (junior and senior). If more than one nomination per category is received, your school will not be considered. To nominate a student, the following conditions must be met:
- The school and school program must be operational
- The student must be part of the previous year’s approved Per Capita Grant
- The student must be part of the previous year’s school program with an approved attendance record and must have a minimum of two years study
- The Coordinator of Language Program must endorse the nomination. All correspondence regarding the award will be forwarded to the Coordinator of Language Program.
Organisations must have an approved Per Capita Grant application for the previous year and the school program must meet the eligibility criteria. Please refer to the Program Guidelines.
Organisations applying for an Establishment grant are not eligible to nominate students for an award.
Students who have previously received a Minister's Award are not eligible to be nominated for any additional award.
The judges consider a student's:
- proficiency and level of achievement in their community language (see the Community languages schools proficiency descriptors
- commitment to their community language study
- participation in language and cultural activities.
Important dates
Applications for the Minister's Awards open on 1 May and close on 31 May.
The presentation ceremony will take place at the University of New South Wales on Monday 2 September, 2024.
Awards categories
There are two categories of awards. Please note - your community language school can nominate one student only for each category (junior and senior). If more than one nomination per category is received, your school will not be considered.
Junior category
Students who attend mainstream school classes from Years 3 to 6 may be nominated for an award in the junior category.
Senior category
Students who attend mainstream school classes from Years 7 to 12 may be nominated for an award in the senior category.
How to nominate a student
We recommend that your school creates a committee to select which student/s should be nominated. The committee should select the most suitable student for each category.
It is the responsibility of your organisation and management committee to make sure teachers and students are told about the awards and to make sure nominations are made through a fair, transparent and appropriate process.
Assessing students for nomination
When assessing students for language proficiency, the school selection committee should refer to the Community languages schools proficiency descriptors taking into consideration:
Reading and listening tasks
- understanding the broad context of the text
- understanding specific details of the text
- extracting the main points from the text
- using appropriate strategies for deducing information.
Speaking tasks
- establishing and maintaining a conversation appropriately
- using a range of vocabulary and sentence structures to express ideas clearly and appropriately
- demonstrating fluency and proficiency appropriate to the age and length of time that the student has been studying the language
- using correct pronunciation and intonation.
Writing tasks
- organising and expressing ideas clearly and accurately using a range of vocabulary and language structures
- demonstrating accurate use of writing system, including correct grammar in a range of text types.
How nominations are assessed
The Awards Selection Committee is made up of a panel of languages experts and staff from the Community Languages Schools Program. This committee assesses nominations for the awards and decides on the category winners.
In making their decisions, the selection committee only assesses information provided in the online nomination form.
Examples of student work or of certificates previously awarded are not to be included with the nomination form.
Please note the decisions of the committee are final. The committee and program officers will not enter into discussion or correspondence on this matter.
How to video - nominate a student for a Minister's Award
Transcript for how to nominate a student for a Minister's Award
- [Narrator] This video shows you how to submit a Minister's Award nomination on the Community Languages Schools Program Portal. It's best to use Google Chrome as your web browser. This process should take you about 20 to 30 minutes to complete. Before you begin, please take a few minutes to visit our website to read about the Minister's Award, what you need to apply and how nominations are assessed. It's a good idea to prepare answers to the longer questions supporting your student's nomination in a Word document in advance. This is easier and will save time when you add these later. You can find these questions at the end of this guide. Log in to your account with your user email and password. Go to the Minister's Awards web tile and click Read More and Apply. Once you've reviewed the Minister's Award details and are confident that you have all you need handy, click Apply to start your nomination. Choose the nomination category for your student, Junior or Senior. Start typing your school name. You'll see a list of your schools showing in the dropdown. Start typing the student's name in the student name field. Select their name from the dropdown list. Add their address details. Use the dropdown to select the year the student is enroled and how many years the student has been studying. Add the name of their teacher. Then select yes or no to confirm if the student has previously received a Minister's Award. Check all the details are correct and click Save and Proceed. Add parent or caregiver name and their contact details. You will need to add the details of at least one parent or caregiver. Click save and proceed. Add the details of the nominator for this award, noting that the nominator must be a current teacher or management committee member. Add the coordinator of the language program. Add the name of the student's mainstream school which they attend Monday to Friday. Again, you choose the name from a dropdown list. Add the name of the principal of the student's mainstream school, and the email contact. Add the student's community language proficiency level from the dropdown list. You can check the proficiency descriptors in the link provided. Click save and proceed. On this page, you'll be adding the details to support your student's nomination. Here's where you can use the answers to longer questions from the Word document, which you prepared earlier. I'll just be adding sample text just to show the process. These sections describe the student's commitment to community language study, participation in language and cultural activities, and other additional qualities. Then complete the checklist by selecting yes or no for each of the five questions. Once these sections are completed, check all the details are correct and click Submit. You will then see a confirmation message that your nomination has been submitted. If you need to review or unsubmit your nomination, you can do this as long as it's before the closing date. On this page, you can either resume or unsubmit a nomination. To resume a draft nomination, simply click the Resume button and you can take up where you left off last time. Or click the display button to see the nomination details that you've entered so far. If you've already submitted your nomination and want to withdraw it, click the Unsubmit button. A message will show on screen confirming that the nomination has been unsubmitted. Remember, the review and unsubmit functions are only available prior to the application closing date. Thanks for watching
Click here to access the Minister's Awards nomination user guide
How to apply
All applications for Minister's awards should be submitted using the Community Languages Schools Program portal.