Spurs player in global teacher prize shortlist - BBC News
A PE teacher, who plays for Spurs, is shortlisted in a competition to find the world's best teacher.
Eartha Pond has made the final 50 in a competition for the world's best teacher

A London teacher who raised £100,000 for survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire and who plays top-level football has been named in the top 50 shortlist for the annual Global Teacher Prize.

Eartha Pond is a finalist in the $1m (£750,000) teaching competition.

The PE teacher, who plays for Tottenham Hotspur Ladies, is assistant vice-principal at the Crest Academy in Neasden, north-west London.

She says it's great to see the value of teachers' work being recognised.

The teachers in the final 50 are from 33 countries, in a competition run by the Varkey Foundation with the aim of raising the status of the teaching profession.

Ms Pond, who trained as a teacher six years ago, has helped to run Girls Allowed clubs in schools, encouraging young women to take part in sport.

As a footballer she played for Chelsea and Arsenal before signing for Spurs - and in teaching she has also been a top performer, with a strong record in results in sports qualifications.

As a teacher, she says "every day is a lesson". And combining teaching with football, she says can feel like trying to live the lives of two people.

She lives close to the site of the Grenfell Tower fire - and says that when she saw what had happened she began to raise funds.

"I hoped to raise £5,000," she said. But in the end she collected £80,000 and then a school's sports day and support from local businesses took the total to £100,000.

"It's my community, it was a natural reaction, my people needed help," she says of the efforts to support survivors.

Ms Pond is one of four teachers from the UK in the top 50, in a shortlist drawn from more than 30,000 nominations.

The winner will be presented next year with their prize at a ceremony in Dubai.

Last year's winner was Maggie MacDonnell, who teaches at a remote village school in the Canadian Arctic and who has campaigned about the problem of youth suicides in the Inuit community.

The winner was announced by a video-link with astronauts on the International Space Station and with a message from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Sunny Varkey, founder of the Varkey Foundation, congratulated the finalists and said: "We intend to keep this momentum going as our journey continues to return teachers to their rightful position as one of the most respected professions in society."