A Warwick Academy art teacher who says she fell into her profession by happy accident, has been selected for a prestigious international teaching award which will send her to Cambridge University this summer.

Sally Craig ? who is only in her first year of teaching at the school ? has won the Outstanding International Teachers Fellowship?.

Ms Craig was nominated for the award by her colleagues at the school and both teachers and students wrote submissions on her behalf extolling her virtues and explaining why she should be recognised.

The award is administered by Oxbridge Academic Program, an American group in New York, which offers students and teachers the opportunity to study during the summer months at Oxford and Cambridge universities in England.

For the first time this year, the group offered a full scholarship to one outstanding teacher outside of the US for its teaching seminar at Cambridge and Ms Craig was selected for the honour.

She will attend the all expenses paid seminar from July 11 to 22.

?Ms Craig doesn?t shout? and ?I couldn?t draw properly before she started teaching us? were some of comments submitted by her students.

One of her pupils, who is taking the GCSE Art course, made sure to mention how happy she was to have been introduced to using new media by Ms Craig, who has been showing students how to use paints, textiles, sculpture, photography and print making.

The school?s headmaster Robert Lennox also recommended Ms Craig for the award, emphasising her dedication to her work.

?I am really looking forward to going into classes for training and being taught new assessment methods at the seminar, ?Middle School Curriculum: International Contexts?, that I will be attending,? Ms Craig told .

?I am also excited about meeting new people and the whole cultural side of the experience, as there will be excursions to museums and art galleries, which I enjoy. I think culturally and socially it will be good.?

Ms Craig said the seminar will be ?a chance to have a look at what is going on elsewhere in the world, in other art departments?.

However, the seminar is not specifically art related.

Individuals attending the seminar include teachers, principals, department heads ? both experienced and inexperienced ? who specialise in a variety of different subjects and have vastly different backgrounds.

?I think the whole course will be good professional development, so I know that is an invaluable opportunity to have and I am pleased about that,? Ms Craig said.

Ms Craig hails from Manchester, England, and has been teaching for five years. ?I owe all my training to an excellent school where I worked, in Canterbury, England, called Simon Langton Girls? Grammar School,? she said. ?Last year, just before I left the Textiles department, a visiting moderator told us that we were the best in the country.?

Ms Craig studied at Liverpool?s John Moores University where she received a Fine Art Textiles Degree with First Class Honours. Following that, she went to Goldsmith?s University in London to study teaching.

?I kind of fell into teaching by accident,? she said. ?I used to work in an art gallery and sell my own work until a couple of my friends requested that I give their children private art lessons. I agreed to do so and, although it was a challenge, I really enjoyed using my training to help others.?

Smiling, Ms Craig said: ?I love teaching, but I also like using art in different situations such as murals and designing the primary school playground, which I have recently completed. Parents and students will take part in the painting of the facility.?

Her classroom reflects both her own and her students? talents as it is riddled with colour, the essence of a creative mind. The chairs are even painted in a Mexican theme, designed by a year eight group.

In the corner is a bookrack dedicated to contemporary journals such as, ?Art in America? and, ?Art Review?, which she feels are an important educational resource for her pupils.

At Warwick Academy, Ms Craig teaches Year Seven through to the International Baccalaureate (IB) level, a course she said she ?loves? teaching because of its flexibility. She also said she would like to collaborate more with the primary school.

Ms Craig, who was recently promoted to Head of Department for Art, Design & Technology and Food Technology, has big plans for next year.

?I have ordered equipment including four of the latest Bernina sewing machines from Switzerland, a video camera and stand up easels to do figure drawings/still-life,? she said.

?Such activities as papermaking, felt making, marbling, silk painting, sculpture making with copper enamelled wire, coloured willow and metal embossing are going to be added to my teaching curriculum.?

The art department is already equipped with a digital camera, scanner and a large colour printer.

She said the art department is also hoping for corporate sponsorship in order to expand its facilities.

?It will cost in the region of $250,000,? she said. ?Something I?d really like is a larger studio/specialist textiles room and a gallery space to put on regular exhibitions.?

As a young girl, she said she always enjoyed art at school and was quite good at it. ?I was very arty and musical so it was going to be one or the other,? she said. ?I just went for art and I am glad I did because it has become a passion for me in life and I love it!?