A CITY councillor and education campaigner has been handed a prestigious award by teachers.

Micklegate councillor Jonny Crawshaw has been given the Fred and Anne Jarvis Award for his campaigning work on education.

The national award was first given out by the NUT in 2008, and recognises people outside the union who have campaigned tirelessly on education issues. It has previously gone to former children's laureate Michael Rosen, and Malala Yousafzai.

Jonny is a founder member and spokesman for the national parent group group "Rescue Our Schools", and he has spoken and campaigned about comprehensive education.

Jonny said: "This is huge honour and I’m very grateful to the NUT here in York for nominating me for this prestigious award. To follow some of the names previously given the award is very humbling.

“The last couple of years have seen grassroots campaigns spring up both here in York and all across the country as parents see the changes happening in the education system. Groups such as Rescue Our Schools have highlighted the teacher recruitment and retention crisis, the real-terms funding cuts and the flawed logic of the current testing regime, which benefits neither pupils nor teachers and in some cases just makes them unwell.

“Education should be broad ranging, stimulating and fulfilling but sadly schools are being pushed away from providing this breadth of experience due to an obsession with increasingly narrow measures of success and less and less support being made available."