Mrs Harper meets School Captains Ellen O’Brien and Sam Dunnett just before Gippsland Grammar moved to Learn@Home in late March.
Introducing Principal Leisa Harper S
tarting at a new school always comes with challenges but nothing could prepare Leisa Harper for her first day as Principal at Gippsland Grammar coinciding with a global pandemic triggering the urgent and unexpected transition to remote learning. But less than two days after arriving in Sale
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Gippsland Grammar - Veritas
from Rockhampton in Queensland, Mrs Harper brought forward her expected start date and took over the reins from David Baker on what was to be the first day of the School’s remote learning program, called ‘Learn@ Home’. In the subsequent six months more than 1100 students completed almost 70 days of remote learning before returning to the School’s three campuses in early October. On the eve of the students’ return to school, Mrs Harper tells Veritas editor Zoe Curtis how her early days of teaching shaped the type of educational leader she has become, why moving to Gippsland has been like ‘coming home’ and speculates that she quite likely knows more about Star Trek than people may expect.
Today is exactly six months since you started at Gippsland Grammar. Does it feel like six days, six months or six years? I'm quite surprised it’s six months, at times it feels like I’ve been here for six years but that's because of the lovely welcome I have received. But, gee, we've done a lot in six months. Of course, it is much different to what I would have imagined but I am so pleased to be here. How long have you worked in education? Since 1994, so 26 years.
