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Ex-Carlton Football Club coach David Parkin shared his knowledge and experience with the Portland Secondary College senior leadership team on Monday. "Leadership is about encouraging people to take part in making decisions, but it’s also a situational relationship," he said during the lunchtime exchange. "Being a leader at this stage of your life is a sign of what sort of people you are and the potential your teachers and peers see in you for the future."

Mr Parkin visited PSC in his role as leadership coach for teacher Adam Ross who is training to be a teacher under the Teach for Australia program. For his second year of the Teach for Australia program, Mr Ross could choose or be assigned a leadership coach to reflect on his experience in the classroom and grow into an authentic leader through regular discussion. Mr Ross was coached by Mr Parkin’s son, Anthony Parkin, while playing football at university and Mr Ross met Mr Parkin through him. Building on previous meetings and having heard of Mr Parkin’s passion for education, he approached him about the position. "I asked him about it last year and he wasn’t sure at first," Mr Ross said."But after a couple of discussions and a chance to think he was happy to help. He’s been involved with teaching, education and coaching for the 40 years.""While he has been to Portland before, he hadn’t been to the schools and now he has a better understanding of some of the things we discuss," Mr Ross said.

Mr Parkin said he was proud to be helping Mr Ross make the change in his life to become a teacher, after initially becoming a lawyer.  Mr Parkin said the shift to teaching would have been a massive change for Mr Ross, but it was great to have programs which made it easier.  "Teach for Australia is a great way for schools to be connected with people who have the passion to change professions and become teachers," Mr Parkin said. 

Mr Parkin previously visited Portland in 2011 as an Australia Day ambassador, and passed through the district on a postie bike earlier this year on a fundraising mission.

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story by Ross Moir, Portland Observer

picture by Elley Hateley

The Portland Secondary College Glenelg Street Campus (Re-engagement Centre), in the YMCA Community House, has been operating since 2011, offering opportunities for high school students who have become disengaged from main-stream schools.

Currently there are 35 students attending the centre, with two Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL) classes for students aged 15 to 18, and one junior class for students aged 13 to 14.  Portland’s Re-Engagement Centre is known for its homely environment, and the teachers being equal with the students.Its surroundings are more supportive than formal schools, it offers more student-teacher time, and the school work is more relevant to needs of the re-engagement students as it prepares them for life after school and provides the right teaching, support and education the students need.

PORTLAND Secondary College Glenelg Street Campus (Re-engage-ment Centre)

teacher Mara Satins with student Tyran Moore, 17.

 Picture: ELLY HATELEY

"The Re-Engagement Centre and teachers are amazing. They have given me the confidence I need in life," VCAL student Tamsynn Kennan said. "There is less bullying and the teachers seem nicer and easier to get along with," VCAL student Maddie Hansford said. Another VCAL student, Robert Jones, said it was a very welcoming school.

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by Tamsynn Kennan, VCAL student who undertook work experience with the Portland Observer.