DESPITE missing out on the title of Teacher of the Year, Anna Streather said she enjoyed the experience of being a finalist.

The teacher at St Gabriel's with St Mary's Primary School, in Hanley Swan, was picked from colleagues across the West Midlands region to be shortlisted for the regional finals of the Teaching Awards.

She attended a day of workshops in Birmingham on Wednesday (July 4) before seeing a Staffordshire-based teacher beat her to the £3,000 prize.

"It was really nice and there were some lovely people there," she said. "Just to be shortlisted out of thousands is brilliant. It was stressed we were all winners for having got that far."