Anthony Sharp is recognised by his peers at Sheldon College for his leadership in education, with good reason. As the Head of Year 5, Anthony demonstrates leadership in every part of his work with students and staff.

In his teaching role, Anthony researches and utilises works of educational theorists and ensures he is informed about contemporary best practice.

He draws from these works to inform his teaching practice – with positive results for his students’ learning. Rather than only implementing his learning in his own classroom, Anthony actively shares his knowledge and research with colleagues, students and parents.

To support his reflective practice, Anthony has established a school social stream blog through which he seeks feedback from students to inform his future practice. This allows Anthony to be responsive in his teaching practice, and he is much more attuned to how his students are learning.

One example of Anthony’s reflective practice has been his work in determining how the curriculum links to what is assessed in NAPLAN. He evaluates his planning accordingly to not only ensure his students’ results improve, but progress is made without diluting the joy of learning.

Anthony constantly seeks ways to make learning interesting and will conduct learning opportunities outside the classroom such as author walks, historical re-enactments and language investigations. He ustilises all parts of the school, both inside and out, to make learning fun for both students and teachers.

Where possible, Anthony uses cross-curricular opportunities to enhance the teaching and learning process. For example, Anthony has incorporated The Arts with components of STEM and digital technologies. He has also utilised flipped learning approaches for students and provides opportunities for students to showcase their learning. These also involve parent collaboration.

Anthony is constantly seeking avenues to develop his and others’ professional practice.

As a Generation Next member, Anthony is actively involved in presenting professional development and workshops to his colleagues and has taught others about social/emotional learning, creativity, use of cognitive verbs in teaching and higher order thinking.

Anthony intends to become accredited in delivering Mental Health training for teachers, students and parents. He places great importance in helping colleagues incorporating social and emotional learning into the mainstream curriculum.  Anthony sees this as an essential element in fostering a love of learning.  This is also evident in the charity events that he organises which involves learning about others facing diversity.  Anthony designed a pastoral care unit for teachers to implement in conjunction to raising awareness and funds for a local disability organisation.

So far, Anthony has been actively involved in creating and delivering development opportunities for his colleagues on topics such as writing, social and emotional development and learning, student wellbeing, and creativity. He has an ‘open door policy’ whereby his colleagues freely come and go by his classroom to observe him practice in order to develop ideas and inspiration.  It is common to see Anthony in another classroom helping and modelling teaching.

He actively supports mentors and new beginning teachers and has been involved with supporting international visiting teachers to attend Sheldon College.
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Congratulations on your nomination, Anthony!