AISWA's Executive Director, Ms. Valerie Gould, has been awarded the prestigious 2018 WA College of Educators Medal for her outstanding services to education. The Medal was presented at the Walter Neal Oration & Awards Evening on 23 October 2018.
Valerie 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 and later the Curriculum Council) 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.
Valerie has served on the ACARA Board for four years commencing in 2015 and in 2017 Valerie was appointed to the Review of Educational Excellence for Australian Schools chaired by David Gonski.