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St Paul’s Grammar School Penrith
S tP GRAMMA
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JUNIOR SCHOOL SPECIALISTS
Mrs Kylie Croucher (left) and Mrs Fiona Holman
Bringing experts and expertise aboard Mrs Kylie Croucher and Mrs Fiona Horman bring enthusiasm, experience, expertise and insight into their subject-specific specialist roles in Junior School.
When the Head of the Junior School was looking for specialists to take the load off his teachers from the beginning of this year, we in VAPA saw it as an opportunity to establish a K to 12 dance program. I applied for the job and was offered it. It is a good opportunity to develop dancers at an early stage so we can mould them into the sorts of dancers they could be. It is a wonderful opportunity to develop skills by experiencing dance in a non-competitive environment and developing a passion
Mrs Hornman is the first specialist sports and PDHPE teacher the Junior School has had and she is looking forward to building on the work that others have done in the past: I studied for a Bachelor of Health Sciences and a Diploma of Education at the University of Western Sydney and have taught PDHPE at schools in this region for a number of years. I am teaching sport and PDHPE because I love the work and I love sport. I am particularly enthusiastic about distance running and adventure racing – mountain bike riding, kayaking and cross-country running – and took part in the world championship triathlons in New Zealand in 2003 and Hawaii in 2005. I applied for this position because working with Junior School students has been my dream job since university days. What I’d like to do is develop in kids a love of sport as I have, to encourage teams to get into competitions, to have a strong sport focus in the school and to inform kids of the many sports options available. FUTURUM asked her what message she had for the children: Get out there and have a go!
spgs PENRITH
I did practice teaching at St Paul’s in 2005 and was taken on staff in the High School. I absolutely loved working in the Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA) Faculty. I enjoyed it because the students are beautiful, the staff wonderful and because it is such an innovative and creative place.
for movement. Dance can be an amazing way to express yourself as a person, using the gifts God has given you in your body, in order to communicate with others. It is a really powerful art form.
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Mrs Croucher speaks of this new direction to her work and how she arrived at this point: I started dancing when I was three or four. My grandfather had been a dance instructor. My mother got me into jazz and ballet classes very early and I was involved in musical theatre classes and school productions. I had really good training and performance and experience. I studied for a Bachelor of Arts (Drama Theatre and Performance Studies) and Bachelor of Education at the University of NSW. I did this course because it was an opportunity to combine everything I love – dance and drama – into a career.