Judith Stuart is the first female principal for Mulwaree High School.
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Mrs Stuart and husband Tony packed up their lives and moved to Goulburn from the Central West so she could take up her new appointment at the school.
She has been in teaching since 1983, some 34 years.
Mrs Stuart has been an executive member of a number of high schools, including Blayney, Oberon, Bathurst, Orange and Canobolas.
When the Goulburn Post asked Mrs Stuart about the highs and lows of teaching, she said there had been many challenges, but mainly highs.
“I love working with children.” she explained.
“The highs include when you see your class engaged in doing something, and watch it happen after you give the skills to the students.
“When a student receives great results after an exam, you get a warm feeling and an excited buzz.”
Mrs Stuart is a secondary school educator and a qualified teacher in science and agriculture.
She spent seven years teaching science on Norfolk Island early in her career.
She said she and her husband were happy with the move to Goulburn and liking the area, which she said was not dissimilar to the Central West.
Mrs Stuart has spent one term as a principal at Mulwaree so far and is already beginning to embrace the school ways.
“I’d like to think I can lead the teaching and learning faculty into the 21st century,” she said.
“I have a great executive team around me who are very supportive and the school culture at Mulwaree has collegiality and cohesiveness, which is second-to-none.
“I’d like to build on this and take the school into 21st century learning.
“In my 34th year of teaching, I am not sitting back wondering, I am pushing forward and excited.”
On her second day in the job, she wrote a lengthy submission to the education department to nominate the school to become “a school of the future”, she said.
Her submission was accepted.
“Teaching has changed over the past few years,” she said.
Schools were once the holders of information, but now students are being fostered into thinking and working towards the future.
“We need to help enlighten the students as the information sources have changed in the digital era,” she said.
“More important now is to get the children to collaborate and think about analysing and presenting information of their learning.
“I am excited to be a part of the school moving forward into the 21st century of learning.”
