A warm welcome to 2021 for all families of Glenaeon, both continuing and new. The students of Class 1 to Year 12 commenced Wednesday. Kindergarten Thursday, and we now have a school fully occupied and humming with enthusiasm for the year ahead.
In January the school ran our annual week long Glenaeon Class Teacher Intensive of professional training, this year online. The remote access seemed to increase the enrolment even further, and 250 people from around Australia and internationally zoomed in for a week of professional teacher learning sessions.
In preparation for your children returning to school our teachers spent two days of professional development on the very important theme of Being Well: How a Glenaeon education fosters wellbeing and connection in students and staff. We considered how the many elements of a Glenaeon education work together to build a learning community that is in itself positive and promotes wellbeing.
New Year, New Faces
This year there are a number of changes in organisation and people. Our Enrolments Registrar Chandra Kennedy resigned over the summer and in her place we have made a small restructure. Deputy Head of School (K-6) Dani Finch has been undertaking all non-Kindergarten entry enrolment interviews for some time now, so this moment represents an opportunity to formalise her role as Registrar, with appropriate backup support:
· Dani Finch title will become Deputy Head of School (K-6) and Registrar, managing the Enrolments office and interviews while maintaining overall responsibility for the primary school;
· Katherine Arconati (Class 5 teacher) will step up as Faculty Coordinator for Primary: she will be supported with additional assistance in the classroom and will be responsible for primary curriculum and faculty coordination, thus freeing Dani from these responsibilities;
· Clare Gordon our Events Coordinator (2 days) will go full time and take on the role of enrolments officer, managing all the paperwork and back up in the Enrolments office. Her position will be Events and Enrolments Coordinator.
New Teachers
It’s a great pleasure to be introducing our new teachers for 2021. They have very diverse backgrounds and all bring a commitment to quality education at Glenaeon:
Jennifer Stone is our Class 1 teacher. Jennifer has just completed a Class Teacher cycle at Kamaroi School, but she has a long connection with Glenaeon. As well as working for us as an assistant some years ago, her daughter completed K to Year 10 here.
Ian Munns is our new Head of Music. Ian has a distinguished record as a musician and educator. He has most recently been Director of Music at Ivanhoe Girls Grammar School in Melbourne, and before that at MLC, Sydney for many years.
Alison Totterdell,Mathematics: Alison is recently qualified and has been working at St Ignatius, Riverview. Her first degree was in Science and she has an interesting background in indigenous land management.
Amelia Gonzalez, English: Amelia comes from Abbotsleigh, and earlier at PLC, and has many years of HSC experience under her belt. Her two daughters have attended Kamaroi and one will be joining Year 7 this year.
Andrew Webster, HSIE: Andrew has wide experience in a range of Histories and HSIE subjects, including being Head of Ancient History at Hills Grammar School: he will take over Society and Culture in Years 11 and 12 while Ella Pooley is on maternity leave.
Angela Sutton, Head of Learning Support: Angela hails for the US originally, and has worked in Special Education and Learning Support internationally. Most recently she was Head of Learning Support at the Australian Independent School, Jakarta, Indonesia.
Emily Fam, Student Wellbeing Coordinator: Emily will be our inaugural appointment in this role. She is a mental health social worker who has significant experience in counselling and advocacy work with vulnerable young people in a range of settings including out of home care, and drug and alcohol dependence.
Kim Mann, Sport/PE and Compliance Officer : Kim will be coming from Kamaroi School where she has worked in compliance and administration for five years. She is a trained PDHPE teacher and will assist in a number of classes. She is already a parent in the school with a daughter in Year 8.
Alice Livermore, Library, Careers and Spanish: Alice will be working for three days per week as our senior librarian and also covering our Careers Information service for Years 9 to 12. She is in addition a Spanish speaker and former Spanish teacher, and will teach that language as one of the three language options in Year 7.
Raphaela Mazzone will be Year 8 Guardian and Main lesson teacher. She has been a high school teacher at Mt Barker Waldorf (Steiner) School, where she was also a student herself. She is also nearing completion of a Postgraduate Diploma in Psychology from UNE. She is a professional artist and also a fine musician.
Melanie Harper will be assisting/teaching in Kindergarten, to support Sarah David who will take the one Kindergarten class while Catherine Pilko takes Little Kindergarten covering Junko Nicholas’s maternity Leave.
It’s been a busy start to the term and year, but what else is new? We look forward to an exciting year of learning, one we hope will be as restriction free as possible. With all good wishes to all families and students for the year ahead!