It was a letter Jason Ellwood never expected to come. It came as a complete surprise, but a wonderful one. The letter arrived last term, but it had to be kept top secret… until now.

Otumoetai College head of mathematics Jason Ellwood. Photo: Tracy Hardy.

Addressed to the head of mathematics at Otumoetai College, the letter read: ‘Congratulations Jason Ellwood, you have been awarded a Woolf Fisher Fellowship'.

'It was funny thing,” admits Jason. 'You don't know you've been nominated and you don't apply.”

Named after the late education supporter Sir Woolf Fisher, the Woolf Fisher Trust aims to recognise and reward excellence in education.

The fellowship is one of the trust's major awards, which provides overseas study and travel for outstanding secondary school principals and teachers, polytechnic senior managers, and primary and intermediate school principals.

At a guess, Jason understands he was nominated by school principal Dave Randell.

'To be honest I opened it and thought: ‘What the heck is this?' I went to the principal and said: ‘Do you know anything about this?'

'He just smiled, of course, and laughed. He didn't know until then either that I'd been given it.”

'It was all a bit of a shock when you get a letter saying you've won this and you can go to Australia for three weeks on us.”

Jason's plan is to visit schools in Melbourne and Adelaide, where he says there are several schools that are doing ‘interesting and new things' with teaching and mathematics.

'I'll go and have a look at how they do things, working with some quite different curriculum and teaching ideas, as well as styles of teaching and buildings.

'Hopefully bring something back that we can implement here that will help us out as we're moving forward.”

Fellowship recipients can chose when they wish to cash in their $10,000 educational trip across the ditch and Jason's chosen to leave September 2016.

'It's the last three weeks of end of Term 3. I have a study award to complete my masters next year, so the current plan is to complete my dissertation for my masters in the 16 weeks that I have across Term 2 and the beginning or most of Term 3, and top it off with the trip to finish off Term 3.”

He's given thought to the staff and children in his absence and has agreed it's the most logical time to go.

Teaching mathematics at Otumoetai College for 13 years, Jason says the fellowship is recognition of his role at the school.

'It's in recognition of what my boss' see as a high level of commitment to the subject and the department and to the students here at the college.

'It's a huge honour. I'm by no means the only person who's deserving of this award, but it's always nice to be recognised.”