Laurel Baxter-Butts says the St Anne’s College motto ‘nothing without joy’ is something she and her fellow teachers truly live by in their work.
“We put joy into everything we do,” Laurel said.
She has been at the college since it opened in 2019 and is now in her sixth year of teaching there.
At first, she taught the Foundation students as they and the Year 7s were the only levels, but since there have been Year 1s and 2s, Laurel has been educating them.
Before she was at the Kialla college, she taught at St Mel’s Primary School with Dom Poppa, who became the first principal at St Anne’s.
“It was a really great experience being involved in starting a new school; busy, lots of decisions to be made, but it was great,” Laurel said.
“I’ve loved watching it grow; It’s been a terrific journey.”
She has enjoyed welcoming new year levels each year, as well as watching the physical structure grow.
“It’s just such a beautiful learning environment, everything has been purposely built, you will notice that everything is natural; it’s lovely,” Laurel said.
Of course, quality education is about more than aesthetics, and the 120 staff at St Anne’s are committed to instilling strong foundations in their students.
“We’ve got a great staff with a real range of experiences,” Laurel said.
“We’ve got staff that are first year out of uni as graduates and we’ve got staff who are really well experienced. They truly are dedicated.
“We have such rich dialogue about the children. The first thing we do is build the relationship, learn their strengths, then pinpoint their next point of learning, it’s a great team effort.”
She said staff at the college put a lot of work into teaching lifelong learning skills.
They aim to help the students become great communicators, collaborators, researchers, thinkers and self-managers.
“Those were the foundations we established in our students. We taught them those skills, so then they’ve taken them with them along the journey,” Laurel said.
“I think that has really set them up for moving along each year level. Those sorts of skills you can take everywhere.”
The staff’s expectations of the children are that they respect everyone and everything, do their best and help others succeed.
“You can really see that when they’re working together and how they’re applying those expectations,” Laurel said.
“Tapping into their wellbeing is very important as well. If they’re not well, then they can’t learn. We have to get that right first so that they can learn.”
Though she teaches primarily primary school students, Laurel said watching the college’s first cohort of Year 12s graduate this year was emotional.
“It was quite a proud moment to see the Year 12s finished, particularly being our first years,” she said.
“And just how quick the time has gone really, seeing them grow from little Year 7s to Year 12s. They did a superb job.”
Laurel said it had been a great journey to see the house groups develop throughout the other growth she’s witnessed in the college’s early years.
“We’ve got a fabulous community, the students, the parents and the teachers all working together for the students’ education,” she said.
“It’s a fabulous learning environment with terrific kids — they really are terrific kids, they just know so much and are just so capable — supportive staff and I think it’s great for professional development, it’s a fabulous place to work.”
She said the school also fostered a supportive environment among its staff, with teachers all getting heavily involved in themed dress-up days and events.
“We have a lot of fun in planning those,” Laurel said.
“There’s always time for fun as well.”
