Kirsty Howard

Kindergarten Teacher, St Gabriel’s School

Kirsty Howard is a Kindergarten teacher at St Gabriel’s School in Castle Hill, where David Cook started as Principal 12 months ago. Over this time, David has come to see the strengths in Kirsty’s teaching, and the positive difference she makes in the lives of the students in her class and their families. He regularly sees her passion for teaching students with special needs, something Kirsty herself identifies as the foundation of all she does. Her own formative experiences in high school emphasised the power of a learning community, where having teachers who believed in your capability and capacity to succeed helped create in her a lifelong passion for learning. Kirsty now seeks to instil this in her students as they start their own pathway through school.

Kirsty feels her role is a privileged one. She helps her students settle into school and build essential learning to learn skills, foundational to their growth as independent, resilient students. Acknowledging that success varies for each student, Kirsty leverages her experience with special needs students, from early intervention to post-school stages, to assist her current students in achieving their potential. She celebrates their hard-earned successes, which, though often small, are always significant and impactful. David feels the safe, supportive learning environment Kirsty has established in her classroom for the students is a crucial factor in their happiness at school. For him, it is her capacity to differentiate across the range of needs in her classroom that helps each learner achieve to the level of their capability in a well-structured environment that helps each student. As a consequence, their family feel confident and comfortable, making school an enjoyable experience for all of them.

Seeing organisation as the key to effectiveness, Kirsty also feels that one of the greatest ways any teacher can learn is from classroom experiences. For her, the most powerful professional learning she has comes from her interactions with her students. Her advice to young practitioners is to seek out a colleague who can be a mentor, a professional friend, to always keep asking questions and have a clear sense of why they are in the classroom. For Kirsty, it is these things that allow her to be authentic and present in all she does, and for David it is a great part of the secret of her success in and out of the classroom.