Term 4 Primary Leaders Online Meeting

Rob joined Bunbury Cathedral Grammar School in 2017 as Head of Primary, having spent the previous 12 years at an Anglican School in Busselton.  He is a strong advocate of Carol Dwek’s ‘Growth Mindset’, believing that hard work and perseverance are the key to achieving one’s goals.  Rob graduated from Cambridge University in 1992 and worked for almost a decade as a property consultant in London before ‘seeing the light’ and moving across the globe and into teaching. He is continually amazed by what children are able to achieve and by their endless curiosity and enthusiasm. 

Geraldine Drabble, the current Deputy Head of Junior School – Curriculum at St Mary’s Anglican Girls’ School and has been a passionate primary school educator for the past 30 years.  Geraldine has taught all year levels from Kindergarten to Year 7 in government and independent schools both in city and rural settings. Geraldine believes that creativity is a group of skills needed when students are working through ideas that are both original and valuable. At St Mary’s Geraldine enjoys working alongside staff and students to develop their learning passions. She understands that a safe environment is required to explore creativity in all areas of learning and encourages teachers to approach units of inquiry as problem-solving activities with a growth mindset and take (sensible) risks to engage their students.

Lisa Fenton has been Principal of Margaret River Montessori School, a school catering for children from birth to Year 6, since 2014 and has taught and worked in a variety of educational settings for over 20 years. Throughout her career she has taught students ranging from babies/toddlers and Kindergarten through to Year 12 (ATAR), from the city to the remote Western Desert in both Catholic and independent schools. Lisa has also worked as an education consultant at AISWA providing support to principals, teachers and education assistants working in the Aboriginal Independent Community Schools all over WA. Since joining MRMS she has embraced Montessori as an educational philosophy and method, and has also been invited to be a member of the Special Needs Advisory Committee with AISWA assessing the impact of disability on education and distributing funding across WA independent schools. All of her experiences in education past and present culminate in her personal educational philosophy that ensures an optimistic perspective and an acknowledgement of diversity is applied to every educational setting and every individual in that setting.