My personal character is one of integrity, passion and determination. I am a devoted teacher who has an ambition to succeed in changing the lives of students by helping them discover and explore their potential. I believe teaching is about creativity, imagination and sparking interests within this fast-changing digital world. I am always in search of making learning more innovative and engaging for our ākonga. This enables curiosity to grow within a student, enhancing their willingness to learn.

I value strong, positive relationships between students, parents, colleagues and the wider community, as together we learn as one, with each day bringing new opportunities to learn. This enables me to open my eyes to practice not just within my school, but beyond Our Lady Star of the Sea school, bringing that expertise back to share with colleagues. I believe in recognising the strengths and leadership qualities in my colleagues and using their strengths to grow the capacity and expertise within our school and wider Kāhui Ako. Being an Across School Lead allows me to work with colleagues and students from all walks of life, where I can express genuine interest in children and their success. I am a reflective practitioner and consistently seek ways to improve and refine my teaching and the learning programmes in my classroom. I recognise the importance of lifelong learning and value of professional development.

I have been in the teaching profession for more than 20 years working in both Primary and Secondary Schools. I am really excited to be a part of this new initiative, the Kaahui Ako, which will enable teachers to work toward making a significant change in creating opportunities to improve practice, therefore empowering students to achieve to their potential in all areas of school life.

We want our colleagues to feel a sense of achievement both professionally and personally, that they have modeled and facilitated to students a strength in what faith can do and that they have created opportunities for students to be involved in their learning. We want our students to leave our places of education with faith in their hearts, memories of being a person who was involved in their education and a love of learning so that they may use these skills to create communities that align with what God wanted for us all.

The education and the educating of colleagues and students alike is at the forefront of all people in the business of learning. The access we have to experts, to new pedagogies and information is phenomenal and we are completely immersed in this all the time. The biggest challenge facing us today is how can we sift and sort through all of this to formulate the best outcomes for both teachers and students. Within Kaahui Ako this challenge becomes exciting as we are able to collaborate to achieve our common goals.

He waka eke noa.
We are all in this together.

A passionate educator, I believe learners are at the center of all teaching and learning experiences. This enables communities to build the whole child together with authentic Christian educational opportunities to develop future citizens who will contribute to the well-being of the community. This, intertwined, with learner agency supported by passionate educators to scaffold the learning process is vital. Together with the empathy that overarches this thinking educational practices can be transformed. Each child has a gift and as educators we are responsible for helping our students realize that potential: ‘I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful’ Psalm 139: 14

First, and foremost, I am a learner and this belief in lifelong learning as a lived practice has informed my twenty years of practice.

I’m excited about my new role as an ASL. I bring experience in the leadership and facilitation of collaborative inquiry, coaching and mentoring, up-to-date implementation of best practice and highly successful learner outcomes to our Kahui Ako. For the past four years I have been collaborating with local schools through the Eastern Learning Network and am excited to further these relationships through our Kahui Ako.

This is the start of something new and exciting and I am looking forward to finding new and better ways to work together. With faith and collaboration as our foundation it is sure to be an amazing journey.