Welcome Ceremony

Thank you to the almost 20 of our staff who attended the Welcome Ceremony for our commencing students on 22 February. We gathered on the grounds of Booloominbah, complete with face masks. You had to get very close to work out who you were talking to. 

Congratulations to Dr Genevieve Thraves – Dr Genevieve Thraves was notified on 3 February that her PhD had been conferred. Congratulations Genevieve. Our school had three staff successfully receive their PhDs in the past 12 months and on Monday, at the UNE Welcome Ceremony, the three were finally able to wear their gowns (and two did not have the opportunity to attend graduation as was planned earlier in the year). So, the school celebrates our three doctors, Dr Joanna Anderson, Dr Genevieve Thraves and Dr Tay Garrad – congratulations all and we will celebrate as a school soon on your successful completion of your PhDs. (Photo – our three doctors in their academic gear).

Congratulations Associate Professor Jennifer Charteris – AAUT Award recipient

Congratulations to Associate Professor Jennifer Charteris. It has been recently announced that she has received an AAUT Citation for Excellence in fostering high quality student learning, engagement and inclusion in an online practicum preservice teacher education unit.

Congratulations Associate Professor Jennifer Charteris, Dr Jo Anderson and Dr Genevieve Thraves (and Professor Sue Gregory)

• The successful recipients of a $530,000 Victorian Department of Education and Training tender – “High Ability Toolkit” – working with the department to develop toolkits to be used by teachers with their high ability students.

• Course Coordinators, Impact and Engagement Coordinator and GTPA Coordinator – we will be announcing these over the coming days – congratulations to all successful applicants and thank you to all out-going people in these various roles.

• Student numbers – the enrollment of students in the School of Education is looking very healthy. Thank you to all who have submitted documentation for casuals to assist in teaching our students. So far, we have had 86 casual contracts processed in the School of Education, equating to approximately 10,000 hours of work.

• Workloads – thank you to all our staff who submitted draft workloads to our Personnel team. We have had 100% submission of these documents.

• School of Education Seminar – This week were privileged to hear a great presentation Tay Garrard “From Research to Reality: A practical application of Diffusion of Innovation Theory in Australia autism education” There were lots of questions for Tay demonstrating a very interesting topic. Thank you to Genevieve Thraves who organised our first seminar for 2021.

• RWG (Research Working Group) – watch this space for activities throughout the year. Thank you to Jo Anderson for coordinating this group.

• Department webpages – now available here. Any feedback, please liaise with your Head of Department. Thank you to all who contributed to create these pages, particularly the Heads of Department.

• Leave – please remember to log your leave into Web Kiosk, after discussing with your supervisor. Please note that the COO has sent out a “return to campus” email earlier in the week.

School of Education Review
• We continue to work through elements of the School Review. We are currently developing the School’s Strategic Plan for 2021. Thanks for all your contributions at the school meeting last year. We will now start combining your feedback, the Faculty’s Strategic Plan and the UNE Future Fit Strategic Plan into our strategic plan for discussion, sign-off and implementation.

• PPDR – please arrange meetings with your Head of Department (supervisor) to discuss your career goals and aspirations. PPDR has now been updated and we encourage you to have the conversations.

• Please visit our school’s Facebook page – Hannah is now on maternity leave after the birth of a beautiful baby daughter. More school stories coming soon.

COVID-19 – Please exercise caution in relation to Corona virus and adhere to the directives of the University, Faculty and School. Stay safe, well, maintain great hygiene and keep your distance. Staff are encouraged to wear masks for the first month of Trimester 1 😊.

Celebrating departures and welcomes

• Dr Elisabeth Betlem leaves us at the end of February after arriving in the School of Education in 2014 as a Lecturer in the Teaching and Learning team in Professional Classroom Practice. Elisabeth’s research has always been around visual arts, who is an amazing artist herself, and was instrumental in progressing an eMentoring program with schools and Department of Education and Communities in relation to creating Professional Development resources for school teachers on how to mentor students when on professional experience. Resources and training were developed for these teachers and pre-service teachers. We wish Elisabeth well in her retirement and hope that she will drop in to say “hi” whenever she is in Armidale. Enjoy your coastal retirement, Elisabeth.

• We are now finally able to welcome Dr Stoo Sepp to our community. Stoo has managed to arrive in Australia from Canada, undertake quarantine in Melbourne and end up in Armidale. Welcome Stoo – I hope it isn’t too daunting for you. We look forward to working with you.

• Welcome to Armidale – Associate Professor Dorothy Smith. Dorothy has been working from Melbourne for many months after her appointment to Head of Department, STEM and has finally arrived in Armidale (which we are very pleased about).

• Welcome Lisa Harrison to the Learning Design team. I know most people have already got to know Lisa but we are privileged to have her join us.

• Welcome back Steve Grono. After a quick year in LaTT, welcome back to the School of Education. We are glad to have you returned to us (in one piece).

• Welcome back to Marg Baber – who returns to us after a period of SSP.