TEACHER
I’ve taught English in secondary schools for more than 20 years. Sharing my passion for this subject with students and teachers has been extraordinarily fulfilling. Now I’ve taken that passion outside classrooms, to focus on targeted, intensive teaching and learning with individuals, departments and schools.
WRITING COACH
My ideas and insights will help you develop a distinctive voice for your business, company or organisation. I can work with individuals, small or large groups to help you achieve your communication aims, whether that be on your website, in publications or in your in-house communications.
WRITER
My own writing encompasses everything from academic writing, to blogs, to poetry. I understand the struggle that good writing involves – as Nathaniel Hawthorne once said: “Easy reading is damn hard work”. I love working with other writers in person or on-line, exchanging ideas and suggestions.
HIGHLY QUALIFIED
President of the New Zealand Association of Teachers of English (NZATE) for six years; Council member for sixteen
Head of Department of English (later Faculty of English and Languages) for more than fifteen years
Recipient of an NEiTA (National Excellence in Teaching Award) in 2012
Recipient of a Woolf Fisher Fellowship in 2013
MA in English (Otago); MA in Creative Writing (Victoria); Graduate Diploma in Arts (Massey); Diploma in Teaching (Dunedin)
WIDELY RECOGNISED
Published in English in Aoteoroa and Interface.
Writing team member for Ministry of Education projects (Senior Secondary Teaching and Learning Guide for English, New Zealand Curriculum)
Writing team member for NZQA projects (Unit and Achievement Standards, Tasks, Revisions of Standards, Conditions of Assessment documents, Facilitator)
Recently led a two year, school-wide project examining and improving writing for assessment.
Producer of professional resources and workshops for NZATE
Convener for NZATE Conferences
Poems published in Landfall, Sport, Turbine, Cordite and Trout.