Andria Zafirakou

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Andria Zafirakou is a British teacher who won the Global Teacher Prize in 2018. She teaches Arts and Textiles at Alperton Community School in northwest London.

She was born in northwest London to Greek-Cypriot parents and grew up in Brent and Camden schools. She has spent her entire 12-year teaching career at Alperton and was promoted to Deputy Head of Art within a year. She is now Associate Deputy Headteacher, leading staff professional development. She is married to a fitness instructor and has two daughters.

Alperton is a coeducational secondary school in a very diverse area. In Brent, around 130 languages are spoken. Zafirakou has learned basic phrases in about 35 of them, including Hindi, Gujarati and Tamil, to connect with her students and their families.

Many pupils come from crowded homes where several families share a single property. To help, she organized extra lessons during the day and at weekends and created a quiet space for study. She also added wellbeing and yoga classes after school and made the curriculum more practical.

Her approach starts with building relationships. She believes greeting students in their own language and earning their trust helps learning happen. She began with art as a universal language and introduced art from the students’ cultures before connecting it to Western art. Her work aims to support pupils, no matter what is happening at home.