Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Hello! I'm James, a senior VCE and IB History and Politics teacher, who is passionate about robust curriculum development, promoting global citizenry, values-led education, and student wellbeing outcomes.
Experience in teaching the Victorian Curriculum, VCE, and IB. Alongside working in diverse teams teaching learners of all abilities, I have held a number of additional roles, and carried out other duties: - Staff Occupational Health and Safety Representative. - AEU Sub-Branch President. - Representative on the Principal's Advisory Committee. - Panellist in multiple application processes and interviews. - Organiser of multiple year-level wide day-long excursions.
Experiencing leading a team of 15 staff, across subjects of History, Politics, Legal Studies, Philosophy, Extended Investigations, Accounting, Economics, and Geography. Duties carried out in this role include: - Overseeing curriculum development, and implementation of Victorian Curriculum 2.0. - Overhauling middle school humanities offerings, and the embedding of Holocaust education in our Year 9 program. - Representing the Domain in school-wide leadership forums, such as Curriculum Committee, and contributing to the school-wide initiatives such as our Learner Model. - Charing fortnightly meetings, formation of agendas, and organisation of curriculum, assessment, and exam documents.
As a Senior Student Engagement Officer I, along with 3 colleagues, managed a small team of 32 students who work casually within the Education Faculty of Monash University to deliver tier 1 student support and run activities that enhance the student experience and deliver information. In addition to the tasks and roles I fulfilled as a Student Engagement Officer I was also responsible for: - Filling out the weekly roster for our team - Liaising with the Student Engagement Manager in Education Admissions and Student Services - Setting the goals and objectives of our team - Coordinating group and project work with the Project Group Leads
In October of 2019, I was elected to the Academic Board of Monash University on a 2-year term by the undergraduate cohort. The university's principal academic body, the Academic Board is responsible for the maintenance of high standards in teaching and research. At meetings, I contributed to the discussion and brought a student perspective to the deliberations. At our second meeting of 2020, my fellow student representatives and I successfully negotiated the deferment of the withdrawn fail date in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing students to withdraw from a subject even after results release, thus preserving their WAM and GPA. In addition, I co-wrote the Academic Safety Net policy that was adopted and implemented by the University on May 8. As part of this policy, all hurdle requirements were lowered to 40 from 45, the supplementary assessment range was extended from 45-49 to 40-49, and an opt-in pass/fail system was implemented to allow students to freeze their WAM and GPA, ensuring that no student would face a worse academic record as a result of the pandemic and transition to online learning. At subsequent meetings, my colleagues and I successfully extended the Academic Safety Net to Semester 2, 2020, and advocated successfully for it to cover students studying deferred 2019 subjects in 2020. In Semester 1, over 10,850 students accessed the Academic Safety Net, altering some 27,187 subjects. The Academic Safety Net was then extended to Semester 1, 2021, and later reintroduced following work by myself and colleagues for Semester 2, 2021.
As an SEO I offer Tier 1 support and service to students studying within the Faculty of Education at Monash University, as well as contribute to internal team projects. I undergo a range of different tasks including: - Offering face-to-face assistance to students with course and professional inquiries. - Liaising with internal faculty teams such as the Education Success Advisors and Professional Practice Consultants. - Working with my peers to develop and implement programs, as well as running events which improve student engagement and experiences. - Assisting the marketing team on Open Day, careers events and panels. Some of my work within the Community & Communication project team: - Becoming a Red25 Group Leader with the Australian Red Cross, and organising a faculty blood drive. - Contributing to the "Roll Call" newsletter, sent out to 7,000 students monthly. - Filming the "Humans of Monash Education" segment within Roll Call
As an assistant coordinator of John Monash's co-curricular program, I worked closely with another assistant and the coordinator of the program to organise and run over 30 individual subjects. These subjects ranged from sport such as basketball and netball to more abstract theory-based subjects such as philosophy and science olympiad. It was my responsibility to enhance the quality of educational delivery and pedagogy, assisting our facilitators, most of whom are alumni in studying at tertiary institutions, to deliver the best possible classes. In addition, I supervised classes and was occasionally required to step in and deliver when facilitators cannot make it.
As the Head of Debating and Public Speaking at John Monash Science School, I oversaw the DAV Debating, DAV British Parliamentary, Evatt Model UN, and intraschool debating competitions. In this role, I coached the students to become the best possible speakers they can. This included: - How to maximise your public speaking ability, through utilising examples such as body language - Persuasive language techniques - The formation of effective argument structure - How to definitively rebut opposition arguments In this role, I had a subordinate coach who helped me train and coordinate the almost 100 students in the program in 2020, which was a new record for the school even despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
As a facilitator for the basketball co-curricular program at John Monash Science School, I took a weekly class of approximately 20 students for drills, workouts, game variations, and full-court match simulations. I found my time in this role extremely rewarding, as I was able to train self-proclaimed novices to feel more confident and acquire skills, as well as help more advanced students to better their skills and ability.
At JB Hi-Fi, I worked on the registers during the Christmas period, including boxing day, and I was kept on for months after. I was expected to work in a hectic and fast-paced environment, handling transactions worth thousands and even sometimes tens of thousands of dollars.