Key People

Key People.

The following people are in key leadership roles in our Kāhui Ako

Our Kāhui Ako Leaders

Andrea is one of the Deputy Principals at Karori Normal School. Her focus is Curriculum and Assessment and the Year 5 - 8 areas of the school. Her main teaching positions have been in intermediate schools in Wellington prior to teaching at KNS. She has also worked for Learning Media where she shared her passion for Literacy and teaching in a number of schools in the lower half of the North Island. She is energised by working within the community to promote lifelong learners who are confident, connected and enriched through the experiences that we can all offer.

Our Across School Teachers

Suzanne is one of the DPs at Wellington Girls’. Her particular focus is Teaching and Learning. She has taught in a variety of schools throughout the country, as far south as Canterbury and as far north as the Waikato, but Wellington is where her heart is. She worked for NZQA for three years, before returning to the vocation she loves, working with teenagers as a secondary school teacher. She is excited by the possibilities that could open up for students when all schools work together to improve every stage of the educational journey.

Jane Batchelor is one of the Associate Principals at Northland School. Originally from the deep south, she trained at Dunedin College of Education and Wellington has been home now for 16 years. Jane began her teaching career at Sacred Heart Cathedral School in Thorndon, before embarking on her OE to London. After 5 years, she returned to teaching in Wellington and has been a teacher at Northland School for the past 11 years. Her leadership focus is Curriculum and she is currently working on reviewing and redesigning the Northland School curriculum as well as focusing on effective teaching of maths across Northland School. Jane is excited about collaborating with other schools to share expertise for the benefit of our students, ensuring their education is a success.

Rob Everett is the HoD English at Wellington College. He came to Wellington after five years teaching at Southland Girls’ High School where he was the assistant HoD for English and the lead teacher for student leadership. His particular interest is in literacy. He values the way that being literate empowers students to attain their goals and is very interested in developing teacher ability to support student capacity to read and write. He was Primary trained at Dunedin College of Education back in the day and this has sparked his interest in determining how schools can manipulate commonalities to better empower student learning.

Trish Blacktop is the Team Leader for Year 7 and 8 students at Karori Normal School. She has been at KNS for 6 years having come from Wadestown School via Brooklyn School. Trish taught in the East End of London for 4 years which made her appreciate our NZ education system even more and just how forward innovative it is.
She is excited to be involved in this collaboration that has students’ welfare and their learning at the heart.

Rachel Hall is the HOD of Learning Support at Wellington Girls’ College. Originally from the mighty Hawkes Bay, Rachel is married with two teenagers. Her daughter Hannah is in her last year at Wellington Girls’ College and is off to study at Victoria University in 2019. Rachel has a background in Social Work, primarily working with physical & neurological disabilities, and grief and trauma counselling. Since entering the teaching profession she has taught in schools in Palmerston North and Whanganui, before moving to Wellington and joining the Wellington Girls’ College teaching community in 2006. During her time at WGC Rachel has taught across a number of subject areas including Psychology, History, Health and Social Studies. Rachel is passionate about inclusive practices in education and the importance of building connections. She is excited about the opportunity to work with others across the community in supporting and promoting wellbeing, cultural competency and student agency.

David Cournane has been working as HOD of Health and Physical Education and Wellbeing Coordinator at Wellington College since a 2016 move into the city from St Patrick’s College Silverstream, where he had worked extensively in the pastoral care and guidance areas of the school. He also has a role to play in implementing a philosophy of ‘student welfare first’ in regards to extra-curricular opportunities at Wellington College. David is excited to collaborate with all of the primary schools represented within this community as this is where the foundations of learning are laid in these early stages of the educational journey. He is also excited to strengthen the connections with WGC as he sees the potential to get the best of both worlds in terms of maintaining what is great about single sex education, whilst also overcoming some of what we currently miss by not being in a co-educational environment.

Phil McIntosh Phil McIntosh is the Year 2/3 Team Leader at Karori Normal School. Before living in Wellington, he worked in London and Palmerston North, where he led Physical Education in both schools. While at Karori Normal School, he has spent time improving the teaching and learning of maths as the leader of the mathematics, as well as developing an understanding of what student agency looks like across the year levels.

He is excited to use student voice to gain a deeper understanding of their experiences in order to implement meaningful change across schools. He is also looking forward to collaborating with primary and secondary teachers to improve the learning and experiences that children have during their time within the New Zealand education system.