Meet Ms Emma McDonald – Director of Curriculum

A teacher at St Michael’s for almost two decades, Emma has taught English and Drama, and was Head of Breen House and Director (7–9). In 2021, after returning from a year of long service leave to study a Master of Educational Leadership, Emma will return to take on the new challenge of Director of Curriculum. Having been at the School for many years, Emma has seen a number of cohorts through from Years 7 to 12. In her recent role as Director (7–9), Emma was able to get to know the students well and the types of learning experiences that they valued. These valuable insights and key ideas are what Emma will continue to come back to in her new role. “I am hoping to honour their voices and insights about their education by ensuring our learning programs maintain rigour and relevancy to them, our learning context at St Michael’s and our world. It’s very important to me that students have an opportunity to find their passion or passions; something that brings them joy now and can also sustain them into the future.” To Emma, the most important role of a school is to bring each child’s unique talents to the fore and nurture that talent so that they can go and use it for the betterment of the world. The key for Emma is to find creative ways to sustain a student's engagement and help them to become agents of their own learning, so they are making good choices and are accountable to those choices. “The cognitive, emotional and social development that takes place over that time is extraordinary. I marvel at our students’ sense of curiosity, their bravery, their convictions and their willingness to ‘trial and error’ as they work out who they are and what sort of contribution they want to make to the world. The fact they can do all that in a supportive environment, where their successes can be celebrated and lessons learned from mistakes, makes a school a pretty special place to be.” St Michael’s feels like a second home for Emma, where differences are embraced and potential is fully recognised. Emma believes that one of the key benefits of a St Michael’s education is that each student has the freedom to explore their individual learning journey. “I love that students don’t feel pigeon-holed as a particular ‘type’ of student – that is something that many students tell me when I ask them what they like the most about St Michael’s. It’s a place where you can captain the football team and then rush back to the Drama Studio to perform a lead role in the school play. Our students feel safe in the latitude we try to give them to discover things as learners and about themselves.” Emma’s first passion is drama and performance and she completed a Bachelor of Performing Arts before her teaching degree. While completing her teaching rounds at St Michael’s, Emma was blown away by the quality of the productions and the School’s commitment to all areas of the Arts. “I could see how much the Performing Arts taught and fulfilled the students and I knew that one day, I wanted to return here to teach. I went and taught at another school and jumped at the chance to come back to St Michael’s as soon as an English and Drama teaching role came up.” Outside of School, Emma has also been busy during lockdown, being teacher to her two sons in Prep and Year 5. “Most of my spare time is taken up with spending time with family and friends – a great privilege that we all probably took for granted until it was something we could no longer do over Melbourne’s lockdown.” Emma has also taken up dance classes again this year, which she has managed to continue during the lockdown period. “Dance classes have been a lot of fun, particularly once they moved online and I could learn some Broadway and Jazz moves in my lounge room where no one could see me!”