With a teaching career spanning more than 20 years, we are fortunate to have Rachel McCann joining SCAS as our new Literacy and Library teacher. Rachel has spent the last three years working with Adelaide University developing online Mathematics Teaching courses aimed at encouraging a love of Mathematics in both teachers and students. Rachel has also spent time working as a Mathematics and Literacy Consultant, as a special education teacher and coordinator, and also a classroom teacher across NSW and the UK.
Rachel is very excited to get back into the classroom here at SCAS and finds that there is “nothing more rewarding than those light bulb moments when students get a concept you are teaching or the joy of watching the learning progression as students transition across their primary schooling.”
The Media team sat down with Rachel at the start of Term 1 to ask her some hard-hitting questions.
| What are you looking forward to about 2022 at SCAS? | Having previously spent four years as a teacher-librarian, I am very excited to be back in a school library and have the opportunity to teach digital literacy. I am excited to be teaching coding and robotics to primary students, public speaking and debating while also engaging in author studies and book reviews. Other than my teaching itself, the things I am most looking forward to are helping students complete the Premier’s Reading Challenge, sharing National Simultaneous Storytime, celebrating Book Week and enjoying Australian Reading Hour. |
| What was your favourite co-curricular activity as a student? | I loved singing and choir. Lucky for my son, he got his voice from his father and lucky for everyone else there is no teacher’s choir at SCAS. |
| What is your favourite thing to do on the weekend in the Port Macquarie area? | In my free time, I spend time with my husband and kids. I love to go with them, and our two cute dogs, down to the beach. Port Macquarie is also a great place to catch up with friends for a nice meal, to go swimming and walking. |
| What was your latest good read? | Oh – there are so many. Working in the library and with friends in bookish places, I am lucky to have a continuous source of good books and suggestions to choose from. Some of the better books I have read lately were Kate Gordon’s “Aster’s Good, Right Things”, while a proof copy of her sequel “Xavier in the Meantime” was also a great read. Jackie French’s – “Night Ride Into Danger” was excellent (as are all her books) and “Music for Tigers” by Michelle Kadarusman was a great recommendation. I am currently reading Dragon Skin by Karen Foxlee (recommended by the same friend so I know I will love it) and I will follow this up with Boy Swallows Universe which somehow previously fell through my reading net. If you want to hear about any of these books, or a great recommendation for what you could read, please drop by the Library front desk and ask me as I am sure to have read even more good books by the time you arrive. |
| Tell us a fun fact about you | As a child, I hated reading! |