1818
AROUND THE SCHOOL
STAFF PROFILE: JOSH BJELKE-PETERSEN The travel bug bit Indooroopilly Year 5 teacher, Josh Bjelke-Petersen, hard and up until the first wave of COVID lockdown, you’d be hard pressed to find him in Australia. Now, he has settled locally and we welcomed him to the St Peters family earlier this year. I caught up with Josh to talk about his famous surname, travelling and his love of photography.
C A SSIE T WEMLOW
publications officer
CASSIE TWEMLOW: Hi Josh. Tell me a bit about your heritage. Can I assume you are of the renowned Bjelke-Petersen family? JOSH BJELKE-PETERSEN: Yes. Sir Joh and Flo were Granddad and Grandma. I grew up on Bethany, which is the Kingaroy farm. It was an awesome childhood growing up on a farm. I have three brothers and a younger sister, so there's plenty of space to run around and burn some energy. I can't imagine my parents would have survived with four boys all under the one roof if there was only a small backyard. My parents are still up there and it’s always nice to go back. I attended St John's Lutheran School Kingaroy - which is now a P-9 school - for my primary years and then I went to the local high school. I enjoyed my time especially because a good group of friends made life pretty easy. CT: And what made you want to become a teacher? JBP: My mum was a teacher. Admittedly, she started teaching preschool and that was never for me but, I always enjoy having fun with the kids. And I enjoy seeing them grow especially from the start of Year 5 where they are somewhat small and they slowly mature. Then they start to really appreciate all the different things they're learning and take pride in their work as well, which is always such a nice progression for people to see. I did an HPE major and came here as a Prac Student in 2011 - I was actually with Cam Glass down in Lower Primary. That was a great time I really enjoyed the school; I really enjoyed working with Cam and just the atmosphere was very supportive. It was nice coming back for my interview and seeing some of the staff members that were here when I was on prac still here. Obviously, it speaks to the culture in school they hang around for a number of years.
Plus Ultra | November 2021
My first school was up in north Queensland. I did four days in the classroom and then I was the PE teacher for a day, and that was a great opportunity. The school was a tiny (40 kids) and across the road was the local town pool. I had the keys to the pool so every Friday in Terms 1 and 4 we'd go swimming and that was always a lot of fun. This year I coached the Year 8B girls Volleyball team here. I played Volleyball throughout high school and then socially with some friends. I quite enjoy the sport and the Year 8 girls are great and it was nice working with a different age group. The last time I had anything to do with Year 8 girls when I was in Year 8! It was a great group and we went undefeated this season, which was an awesome result. CT: I follow your Instagram account and the places you have been are amazing – not to mention the photos you have taken. JBP: I have a nice camera that I probably don’t do justice to but in the last couple of years I started getting into film (35mm and 120mm) photography. I have all the stuff at home to develop the film and that's a fun process. It can be long, but it is a rewarding process finally developing the film and seeing all the photos. I've got two cameras at the moment and I can't remember half the photos that I took on those cameras so it's always nice to develop the film and then remind you of all the fun times and all the things you did. It's always nice to have physical photos - I think it just attaches a little bit more meaning insofar as, you can't just go and take 1,000 photos of one thing, you need to be a bit more mindful of what you're snapping or you’ll end up going broke pretty quick. CT: What's your favourite place you've visited? JBP: I was very lucky to travel to a lot of very awesome places. I did three years up in
