Briefing the Board Conference

Valerie Gould became the Executive Director of the Association of Independent Schools of WA in July 2008. She has worked for many years in the Western Australian education system with her first four years teaching Economics and Mathematics. The following seven years were spent working in New York with Ernst and Young, and being greatly involved in the introduction of microcomputer applications into business. She returned to WA in 1986 as Director of Computing at St Mary’s Anglican Girls’ School for seven years.

During the early 1990s she worked with the School Curriculum and Standards Authority (at the time the Secondary Education Authority) for four and a half years before joining AISWA as the Manager of Curriculum and Australian Government Targeted Programs. She has been with AISWA for more than 10 years and has worked closely with schools and other stakeholders in the areas of curriculum change, Curriculum Framework and Senior Secondary Education; and in meeting government regulations from a national and state perspective. Valerie has a Bachelor of Economics and a Diploma of Education, and is a Fellow of the Australian College of Educators and the Australian Council for Educational Leadership.

Ron is Deputy Director of AISWA. He has extensive experience in teaching and leading a diversity of schools in WA and Victoria.  Ron manages innovative programmes and university partnerships for AISWA. He is a member of the Global Educators Leaders Partnership and has been awarded Fellow of Australian Council of Educational Leadership (WA). Ron is also Chair of the Australian Children's Literature Alliance working closely with the Australian Children's Laurette.

Jan Clarke has been with AISWA since 2008. She has teaching experience in both primary and secondary education, including G&T and Computing education, HoLA for Technology and Enterprise and management of competency-based certificate qualifications. She has now actively incorporated ICT in her teaching for over 25 years and has a strong belief in its potential for enhancing and extending student engagement and learning. Jan has a BEd (Curriculum), Grad Dip in Comp Sci (Education) and a Cert IV in WTA. In addition to the core business of supporting schools with ICT integration, at AISWA she has: assisted schools with the introduction of the WACE T&E subjects; represented AISWA on panels for SCSA and ACARA; reported on impacts of the DER; collaborated with ECU and UWA on research projects; represented AISWA with papers and workshops at conferences in Australia and overseas and has developed and shared many ICT-related teaching and learning resources.

Therese has worked at AISWA for a number of years, previously in the Aboriginal Schools Support Unit and in the administration of a Commonwealth funding program for the CGA. 

Since 2014 Therese has worked in the area of school registration and compliance, which involves supporting schools with their renewal of registration process and assisting all member schools with queries related to school registration and compliance with the Registration Standards and Requirements. Therese works in this role alongside her colleague, Gary Robinson.  When not visiting schools she and Gary are a contact point for school compliance queries and are involved in presentation delivery, school constitution review, the development, review and maintenance of policy and procedure guidelines, governance guidelines, production of the Registration and Compliance Focus newsletter and other documentation associated with registration and compliance.

Nicola is committed to the transformative possibilities of education. She has a keen interest in working with others to implement research and policy into practical processes and strategies. She has had sixteen years experience in leadership positions with independent and government schools. She has worked in both school and policy settings where much of her work was about gaining consensus from diverse interest groups.  

Most recently she has come from a K-12 regional AISWA school where she was a member of the Executive. She has taught across all phases of schooling.  In addition to her work in schools, she has spent time as a literacy consultant, writing for First Steps and in senior secondary policy development and design.

Nicola is keen to work with teachers and school leaders to translate their vision into practice and to help them link the work they currently do with the AITSL standards.

Lynne joined the Inclusive Education team at AISWA in April 2017. She has worked in the fields of both education and small business. Lynne completed her Diploma of Teaching (Primary) including studies in Special Education in NSW and taught there for a number of years. After time running a small family business and moving to Perth, Lynne returned to teaching in the role of Special Needs EA. She has since had a variety of roles within schools including learning support teacher and coordinator, supporting teachers in working with students with disabilities, curriculum coordinator including differentiation and support to particularly cater for children with learning needs. During her time as a Principal, Lynne has been passionate about creating an inclusive school culture and community. She has also been involved in supporting school leaders and school registration particularly in the area of Child Protection and Disabilities.   

After graduating with a Bachelor in Science (Chemistry) and a Diploma in Education Gary started teaching in 1979 as a science teacher at Norseman District High School. After teaching for 9 years in Department of Education schools in a range of subjects including Chemistry and Physics he moved to Albany, with his family, where for the next 20 years he taught at Bethel Christian School. He was Principal of the school for his last 8 years in Albany. From Albany Gary and his wife moved to Esperance to teach at Wongutha CAPS, a boarding school for Aboriginal students. Gary was offered and accepted a position at AISWA in 2007.

Gary’s first role at AISWA was to support the Aboriginal Independent Community Schools (AICS) as they took on older students as a consequence of the raising of the student leaving age. Gary then worked in the newly created Policy and Registration space for a few years before taking on the management of the AICS support team. Since 2013 Gary has been back as a consultant in the Registration and Compliance area where he works alongside Therese Bamford.

Gary has an interest in Occupational Safety and Health and Risk Management and is one of the OS&H Representatives at AISWA.

Kris is the Manager of Teaching and Learning at AISWA. She has extensive experience in all aspects of curriculum, assessment and policy development, and has previously provided leadership and support to schools as a K-12 Principal Consultant and A/Curriculum Manager at SCSA, and as an advisor and author for a variety of curriculum initiatives and resources. Kris has a Master of Education and has extensive experience in the tertiary sector.