2020 Winners
Teachers play an extraordinary yet understated part in the lives of children.
Hearty congratulations to the 23 national recipients of the 2020 National Excellence in Teaching Awards.
Clair Goodall
Early Childhood (QLD)
Awarded the Futurity Parents Award in acknowledgment of being adjudged the best early childhood teacher nominated by an ASG/Futurity parent member.
Clair sees her students as superheroes, and with her abundantly positive manner they see her as one too. She sees it as essential for the development of brain and physical development, and self-regulation that young children get up and move regularly.
Kye Foster
Primary (NSW)
Awarded the NEiTA Early Career Teaching Award 2020 in recognition of his ability to meet the specific learning needs of students, within a few years of entering the teaching profession.
Kye is a first-year teacher of Indigenous heritage, who has already shown himself to be a leader by example in his school community of Dapto near Wollongong in NSW. During the COVID crisis, he helped get devices out to his lower socio-economic students and families.
Lucardia Moulton
Primary (QLD)
Awarded in recognition of her outstanding contribution to student education and welfare in a year of pandemic.
Lucardia is a literacy leader at St Margaret’s Anglican Girls' School in Brisbane. She has responsibility to ensure the continuous literacy development of all students.
Shelley DeRuyter
Secondary (QLD)
Awarded the 2020 Terry O’Connell Regional and Remote Teachers’ Award in acknowledgement of the benefits she has brought to her students and the wider community through her untiring efforts and community involvement.
Shelley has been instrumental in developing her school's aquaculture program which is linked to the local economy and two university campuses in Townsville. To provide authenticity and relevance, she engages with local FNQ community professionals and current research to align curriculum standards, contemporary topics, industrial protocols, and skill development in her students.
At the core of Shelley's practice and program planning is the use of applied scientific method and inquiry-based problem solving focusing on relevant context and authentic tasks.
Shelley has clearly connected her school with local industry, academe and the community and is a worthy winner of the Terry O'Connell Regional and Remote Teacher's Award.
Matthew Frampton
Secondary (VIC)
Awarded the NEiTA Early Career Teaching Award 2020 in recognition of his ability to meet the specific learning needs of students, within a few years of entering the teaching profession.
As an early career secondary music teacher in Victoria at Whitefriars College, Matthew greatly impressed the judges with his response to lockdown by using a mix of media and employing flipped classroom techniques for musical composition and rehearsal.
Peter Bothe
Secondary Principal (WA)
Awarded the NEiTA Founders’ Principals Award for Leadership in recognition of outstanding stewardship of student education and welfare, and exemplary teacher and school community leadership in a year of pandemic.
Peter is in touch from the micro level at the school – he knows most of the 1400+ students by name and is out there every recess chatting with students - to the macro level where he has been the leader on many educational boards as well as the Head of the Secondary Principals Association.
Laura Wheeler
Primary (NZ)
Laura Wheeler was recognised for their outstanding contribution to student education and welfare.
Ms Wheeler’s experience moving her classroom online in recent years has paid dividends during COVID-19 school shutdowns. During Auckland’s two lock downs, she gamified her classroom and successfully reached children previously unable to read nor write. Laura demonstrated her leadership credentials by leading an e-learning project at her primary school.
Nick Coughlan
Secondary Principal (NZ)
Nick Coughlan was awarded a NEiTA Founders’ Principals Award for Leadership.
Nick was recognised for his outstanding stewardship of student education.
Mr Coughlan’s nominator said that throughout this year Nick has displayed outstanding leadership. “Under lockdown he was calm and lead from the front, with strong communication as key. “
Tiana Garlick
Early Childhood (WA)
Awarded in recognition of her outstanding contribution to student education and welfare in a year of pandemic.
Tiana works in Early Childhood a lower socio-economic part of Perth and has demonstrated a great ability to build community and inclusion with her Sustainable Learning Playground which she has also funded via Bunnings sausage sizzles.
Bill Ellis
Primary (WA)
Awarded in recognition of his outstanding contribution to student education and welfare in a year of pandemic.
Bill cites his growing understanding of the inquiry approach as profoundly transforming his teaching. With a strong focus on relationships and creating a sense of fun around learning.
Natalie Cooke
Primary (NSW)
Awarded in recognition of her outstanding contribution to student education and welfare in a year of pandemic.
Only four years into her teaching career as a mature age entrant to the profession, Natalie is already a widely respected and influential educator in Sydney. Natalie led her school's adoption of e-learning techniques.
Annemarie Denton
Secondary (VIC)
Awarded in recognition of her outstanding contribution to student education and welfare in a year of pandemic.
An experienced and much-loved teacher, Annemarie describes having "found the most fantastic niche at Cornish College" in outer Melbourne.
Denis Overberg
Secondary (VIC)
Awarded the Futurity Parents Award in acknowledgment of being adjudged the best secondary teacher nominated by a Futurity parent member.
Denis entered Victoria's remote learning period with the view that everything created must be re-usable and learnt that there is nothing you shouldn't share widely with students and colleagues.
Zachary Gomo
Secondary (VIC)
Awarded in recognition of his outstanding contribution to student education and welfare in a year of pandemic.
Zachary is a strong advocate for looking at school as a community and for taking a holistic view of the student, not just what they present in the classroom.
David Ivory
Secondary (NZ)
David Ivory was recognised for their outstanding contribution to student education and welfare.
Dr Ivory is a teacher with a strong social conscience which he imbues in his students. “Dr Ivory gives his students hope and has high expectations for them; he is an exceptional teacher,” says his nominator.
Dr Ivory is a teacher with a strong social conscience which he imbues in his students. “Dr Ivory gives his students hope and has high expectations for them; he is an exceptional teacher,” says his nominator.
Richard Crawford
Secondary Principal (NZ)
Richard Crawford was awarded a NEiTA Founders’ Principals Award for Leadership.
Richard was recognised for his outstanding stewardship of student education. With 31 years of experience in the teaching profession, Mr Crawford is a respected principal and community leader who is Lead Principal of 18 schools in his region.
Merilyn Westrop
Primary (QLD)
Awarded the Futurity Parents Award in acknowledgment of being adjudged the best early childhood teacher nominated by an ASG/Futurity parent member.
Merilyn and her teaching partner often extended the learning to outdoors. They created crazy outdoor adventure videos in order to engage and captivate the students (and as it turns out, their parents as well!).
Awarded the NEiTA Founders’ Principals Award for Leadership in recognition of outstanding stewardship of student education and welfare, and exemplary teacher and school community leadership in a year of pandemic.
With more than three decades of teaching experience, Kathryn is a widely respected primary school principal who has successfully built a new school at a greenfield location in Melbourne's outer south-eastern suburbs over the past 4 years.
Awarded in recognition of her outstanding contribution to student education and welfare in a year of pandemic.
Sonya has come to teaching after training as a lawyer and being qualified as a barrister. In only her second year as a teacher she presents as a thoughtful, reflective, and highly committed practitioner. Teaching is her calling which "stills her heart," and which she found after first working as a teaching assistant. She demonstrates great empathy for her students.
Awarded in recognition of his outstanding contribution to student education and welfare in a year of pandemic.
Brendan imbues a strong sense of school community at Scotch College and the importance of trusting relationships. During WA's relatively short school shutdown, Brendan demonstrated a highly collaborative approach to working with both students and fellow teachers.
His systems and design focus assisted the school to better structure on-line content delivery. He unselfishly shared the learnings from his master’s thesis which he hopes to soon publish after peer review.
Awarded the NEiTA Founders’ Principals Award for Leadership in recognition of outstanding stewardship of student education and welfare, and exemplary teacher and school community leadership in a year of pandemic.
Joanne has led her school through the COVID-19 outbreak and before this with "grace and a fierce focus on no student being disadvantaged.” She has ensured that every student had access to technology and that staff were able to deliver every lesson for every student every day during the online learning period.
Moana Tautua was honoured with NEiTA NZ’s inaugural Early Career Award
Ms Tautua, who is only in her fourth year of teaching after a successful career in the media, established a junior bilingual unit, Te Purapura. Despite COVID-19, she built strong relationships with her tamariki and their whanau through her vision of restoring mana to te reo Māori. Ms Tautua’s pupils actively engage in learning, whilst developing their identities and sense of self-worth through the digital learning programme she designed.
Caroline Robertson was awarded the inaugural ASG Parents’ Award in New Zealand.
The honour is presented to a teacher who parents nominate as having made a significant difference to the lives of their students, school families and communities.
Caroline is a German teacher who combined humour with real life interactive activities in her online classes, and posted videos during lockdown.
Kathryn Sharp
Primary Principal (VIC)
Sonya Geraets
Primary (VIC)
Brendan Zani
Secondary (WA)
Joanne Gray
Secondary Principal (NSW)
Moana Tautua
Primary (NZ)
Caroline Robertson
Secondary (NZ)
Media contact
For further information or to arrange an interview with a NEiTA award winner, NEiTA Chairman Allen Blewitt, and/or Futurity CEO Ross Higgins, please email media@futurityinvest.com.
Contact
NEiTA AU - awards@neita.com - 1800 624 487
NEiTA NZ - awardsnz@neita.com - 09 308 0576