Bill Cooney

Trinity Bay State High School

Whether it’s in his Japanese or Music classes, Bill Cooney is constantly looking for new and exciting ways to make his students enthusiastic about learning.
 
The Trinity Bay State High School teacher gets creative to engage his Japanese language students, developing real-life assessment tasks such as writing letters to their pen pals at a sister school in Japan.
 
Bill is engaging the school, parents, and the wider community to discuss language scholarships, which will give his students the chance to travel to Japan on exchange to practice the language and immerse themselves in the culture. 

He also uses this real-world approach in his music and technical theatre classes, where he encourages students to get involved in both school and community based musical theatre productions so that they can put their performance skills into practice.
 
Bill’s commitment to both his students and his wider school community is clear; he regularly gives up his weekends to help get parents and carers involved in building sets for the school musical and uses his own production expertise to teach students about sound and lighting effects after school as part of the school’s performing arts enrichment program.
 
Congratulations Bill on your nomination.