22 June 2022

In this episode we hear from past Public Education Award winners and how the awards changed their teaching career. Peta teaches at Gawler and District College B-12 and has written a book that will help teachers and parents open a discussion about how to manage and reduce anxiety. Plus you’ll meet Lucy from Kilparrin Teaching and Assessment School and discover how the Music For All project is making music education more accessible.

Show Notes

• Public Education awards
• Kilparrin Music for All project

Transcript

Teach is produced on the traditional land of the Kaurna people. The South Australian Department for Education would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land and pay our respects to all Elders past, present and emerging.

Dale Atkinson: Hello, and welcome to Teach, a podcast about teaching and learning in South Australia. I'm Dale Atkinson from the South Australian Department for Education

Georga Tyson: And I'm Georga Tyson, Largs Bay school teacher.

Dale Atkinson: Now imagine going overseas to study a teaching technique or, having a bit of space to write a book or create musical performances for the kids.

Well, public education awards winners have gone on to have those kinds of experiences while further developing their careers.

Georga Tyson: Today, we're catching up with some previous winners to hear what they're up to now and how the award changed their teaching career and how it could change yours. Joining us today, are Kilparrin music teacher, Lucy Standish, who won the 2019 Community Engagement Award, and Gawler and District College reception/year one teacher, Peta Thompson, who won the 2018 Early Years Teacher Award. Welcome to you both. And congratulations on your achievements.

Peta Thompson: Thank you. Thanks for having us.

Georga Tyson: Why did you both decide to apply for the Public Education Awards?

Lucy Standish: I applied because I knew we were creating something really special that year. And that's why my principal nominated me.

So we were doing a big performance, the Music for All project and had that coming up. And so, I wrote the application with that in mind of what we were about to create. That was seen as something that was going be really special.

Peta Thompson: I had dreams of going to Italy to do some training in the Reggio Emilia approach.

But I knew that I would never be able to fund it on my own. I am really, really passionate about community and bridging that gap between home and school, and the whole Reggio Emilia approach is about the whole child, the community, the parent, the teacher, all raising and educating the child.

And I just dreamt of being able to go over and do that. So, I thought, well, this is the perfect opportunity for me to be able to actually obtain that.

Dale Atkinson: So tell us a little bit about what that experience is like going to Italy and what you learnt from there.

Peta Thompson: Oh, well it's phenomenal. Firstly, I don't speak any Italian so that was the biggest challenge.

So I actually went to the town of Reggio Emilia and it's a two-week course where you are immersed in the learning and the schooling over there. There are conferences every day where you hear from parents of kids who go to their schools, you hear, from community members and how they actually have a part in the child's education.

And yeah, you get to visit schools and look at the setup, the wonderful ways that they approach education, which is looking at the whole child. So I was really, really passionate about the community aspect of it. And I took so much of that away and have implemented that into the way I teach now as well.

Dale Atkinson: It's an amazing night, it's an incredible time to spend with your family and celebrate now the great things that can be done in teaching. Can you just explain a little bit about what the experience of the evening was like for you?

Lucy Standish: Such a fun evening. The Public Education Awards really put on a great, great show and I think my category was quite late in the night. And so the tension was, you know, happening the whole throughout the whole evening. And I was like, I'm not going to win. I'm not going win. And then I won and had to go up and make a speech. And then it was just fantastic. Yeah. We had lots of Kilparrin staff come along to support me as well. So, it made it a really fun night. How about you, Peta?

Peta Thompson: Yeah, the whole process actually was really enjoyable from woe to go. Once you put your application in, you don't think you're ever going to be selected. And then, a couple of months later, there was a little envelope in my pigeonhole and it was like the Willy Wonka's golden ticket and I remember opening it and seeing you're one of three finalists and you've been invited to the celebration, the awards night. And so again, you go along, you think, oh no, it's not going to be me. You see the videos of the other people that you're up against. I remember not eating a scrap of food because I was so nervous staring at my meal, thinking, oh my gosh, then yeah. They call your name out. And it's a huge celebration. Lots of staff and friends were there as well from our school. And then it's just a whirlwind after that.

Lucy Standish: I even had Eddie Betts come and, um, tell me that I was the finalist so that was a pretty special moment.

Peta Thompson: Was that you? I saw that.

Georga Tyson: How would you say winning the award has changed your teaching journey or what impact has it had?

Peta Thompson: It's changed me as a person forever. It is something that I really could never have dreamt of. It's incredible. As a teacher, as an educator, you know, every single day, we're always trying to refine the process in what we do and reflect on our teaching, and I just gained so many skills and so much knowledge about children and how they learn and why they learn the ways that they do.

And that really shaped my pedagogy and what I do in my classroom. I could not thank the education awards team more for the opportunity they gave me.

Lucy Standish: Yeah. From the moment that Eddie Betts walked in that was, you know, really exciting for my whole school and Kilparrin. The students still remind me of that moment, but after being a winner, it's really shown the music education that we are, um, doing really amazing things at Kilparrin with our music.

And partnered with SASVI as well. And with Connecting the Dots in Music, we are really innovative in our field and people are recognising that. Music Eviva in schools has also approached me and my colleague at SASVI, Lily Gower to run some professional learning for them on diverse needs and just making a difference with Kilparrin students who have multiple disabilities, deaf and hard of hearing, vision impairments, sensory needs.

We need to make sure that everyone is having an accessible music curriculum.

Dale Atkinson: Now, before we came on air, you were talking to us a little bit about performance that you had a couple of weeks ago. Can you just explain a little bit about how that works and how that reaches out into the community?

Lucy Standish: Yeah. So we've just put on our second Music for All project. And this time it was called The Nest. The first one was Fancy Pants. We were lucky to have Connecting the Dots in Music. Emily G is the project manager. She's a friend of mine and has contacted me again and said, look, we've got to do this.

So, we've been working on it for a couple of years. COVID's got in the way. We were lucky that Tia Martin, who also works for Connecting The Dots in Music, she was our lead teaching artist and she was able to get some grant money from Carclew, which made it possible for us to put it on. And so last week we had musicians in our school that were teaching artists.

And we all created the music with our teaching artists. They got to know our students. They got to know our students' ways of communicating, because most of our students at our school use alternative communication. So that was a fantastic week. We created the music and then we put on a big performance at the end of the week.

Dale Atkinson: Ah, sounds amazing.

Georga Tyson: Incredible Lucy. You were also planning on heading overseas before COVID disrupted the plans. What did you hope to use the funds for?

Lucy Standish: I had planned to go to Helsinki to the International Music Education Conference, where I was going to speak about the project that we did the Music for All project and yeah, that didn't happen. So, I'm really interested to see what they do in Helsinki, because there was a special education music centre there that seemed really interesting and very similar to students at Kilparrin as well. So maybe that's something that I might do. I'm just waiting to see how travel goes for a bit.

Dale Atkinson: There's a lot of opportunities. So that’s, you know, a bit exciting. Now, Peta, your focused on writing a book called Settle Petal to help children manage and reduce their anxiety. Why was that an area you wanted to write about?

Peta Thompson: I'm really passionate about children's wellbeing. And I think as a reception, year one teacher, I see a lot of anxiety in kids, especially starting school and you know, a lot of separation anxiety from mum and dad.

And I'm really passionate about getting the wellbeing intact of the child before delving into the curriculum. I love that saying that no child can learn unless they're in that state of relaxed alertness. And so, when I was looking for resources, there are so many amazing wellbeing resources out there, but nothing that I could find that specifically targeted anxiety and I suffered terribly with anxiety as a child.

And sometimes I knew why, sometimes I didn't know why, it was just a feeling. I wanted to create a resource that opened up that discussion with kids, and also with families. So, I created a teacher resource. I'm really lucky when I met my partner, his family are also in education and his beautiful sister, my sister-in-law Emma Thompson. She's also a reception teacher at Salisbury Park Primary and she's an artist as well. And so, I said, hey, I've got this book that I've written, and I need an illustrator. So she said she would love to do that. So, we collaborated, and we came up with Settle Petal.

So, it's designed as a teacher resource. It comes with a resource pack of activities for teachers, but it's also really important for parents as well. It's a great resource for parents to have a discussion with their kids and open up those lines of communication. At the back of the book, there's a whole heap of, talking points and discussion points that you can do as a classroom teacher, or you can do as a parent.

Georga Tyson: And what was the book writing process like while working as a teacher?

Peta Thompson: I mean, as, as you all know, teaching, the list never, ever ends there's always something to do. But I actually found it therapy for myself, go home after a long day at work and I think about the kids and what could I have done differently and how could I have supported them more.

Am then I would just sort of delve into a, you know, couple of hours a night here or there and, and write the book. And I found that really helped me shape the storyline. So, the process was phenomenal.

Dale Atkinson: I think one of the things that kind of stood out about one of the things you said a bit earlier was around, it took someone else to nominate you to feel like you could then go and apply for the awards. And I think that is something that characterises a lot of teachers, which is a natural inherent modesty about the work they do. So, what advice would you give to anyone who's either considering nominating or considering nominating someone else?

Peta Thompson: Yeah, look, none of us think we're special. We don't think that we do anything special from day to day. Every single teacher is, you know, a miracle worker, the things that we do every day change the lives or impact the lives of kids, you know, constantly. And I would just say, if you can nominate yourself, go for it.

If you've got something to share, whether it's big or small, absolutely. Throw your hat in the ring and have a go. You know, this has been a life changing experience for me, and I've never considered myself lucky. I've never won a meat tray in my life. I didn't think there was any chance that I would be a contender, but you know, it doesn't come down to odds and a raffle.

It's putting what you do onto paper and sharing the things that you do in your classroom or in your school community and, you know, having a go. So absolutely. If you've got something to share, go for it.

Lucy Standish: Yeah. And I was lucky enough to be a judge last year. And I was really like, it's just so exciting to read about what other people are doing and you're doing something special at your school, you know, give it a go.

Georga Tyson: And what's next for you both?

Peta Thompson: Teaching. I've got 26 little people, report writing, yep, all of that. More books are on the horizon for me, I want to do a series of wellbeing books. And the beautiful thing about being in a classroom is you can see the need for things, so I'm getting my inspiration from that.

That's kind of the next direction for me. I'm also incredibly passionate about literacy in the early years. So, I would really like to get into doing some mentoring around explicit instruction.

Lucy Standish: After just finishing our Music for All project last week, just looking towards how we're going to create another one, version 3.

We're all excited from last week at school. Got to get our minds together and create something new, again.

Georga Tyson: Lucy, when you first did Music For All, were you imagining that you would go on to do a second and a third?

Lucy Standish: Not at all. No. I think before leading up to it, there was so much work involved, creating it and working out the model of how it was going to work. Now we've got the model sorted, we know how it works. We know how we could do the second one. We tweaked it here and there as well. Yeah. We are hoping that other schools will also see what we've done and then they'll continue and create something like what we did last week.

Dale Atkinson: I think that's the great thing about the Public Education Awards is that it's a wonderful recognition of, some personal achievements, but it also provides a real beacon to other schools, other teachers, leaders on really great practice out there. And, it's incredibly, incredibly motivating. So, I'd like to thank you, both Lucy and Peta for joining us today.

Peta Thompson: Thank you.

Dale Atkinson: It was wonderful to hear your story and thanks to everyone for listening. You still have some time to apply for the awards for yourself, or on behalf of a colleague.

Georga Tyson: Catch you next time on Teach.