Jane Greffe

Marymount College

Students have taken the world stage in MasterChef style cook-offs under an inspirational teacher who has won a prestigious state teaching award.

Marymount College teacher Jane Greffe is also challenging students to create products that offer real, sustainable solutions to environmental problems.

The Hospitality and Home Economics teacher won the Brisbane Catholic Education Excellence in Teaching Award this year for her innovative teaching approach and leadership. Today she was named the winner of the Queensland College of Teachers (QCT) Excellence in Teaching Award.

Students excel under Mrs Greffe, winning national and international culinary competitions.

After she organised for a range of successful local chefs to mentor students, one of her teams won three consecutive regional championships and the gold medal for Australia at the International Secondary Schools Culinary Challenge in Japan.

Jane (top left) with students from the Boomerang Bags project.

She also co-founded the Gold Coast Home Economics and Hospitality Network Group, which allows teachers to meet regularly and to network to provide the best possible education for their students.
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Working alongside local charity Boomerang Bags, she has fostered an environmental consciousness among students by creating assessments in which they recycle discarded fabrics to make reusable shopping bags.

“I wanted them to not only be sustainable in the future but I wanted them to also start understanding how they had to change their habits now,” Mrs Greffe said.

“Kids like to be challenged, and they will step up if you give them a challenging task. If you give them a tokenistic task, then they’ll just give you what they think you want.”

In 2016, Mrs Greffe won a scholarship to attend the National Conference for Cotton Australia, where she workshopped ways of integrating environmental sustainability into the Australian curriculum.

She has also facilitated an after-school nutrition program developed by Diabetes Queensland called Need for Feed, where her students learnt about nutrition and received training in healthy cooking.

Mrs Greffe was congratulated by the Australian Skills Quality Auditor for her dedication to the field and was asked to share her experience with other vocational education teachers as a mentor.

The winners of the statewide QCT Excellence in Teaching awards were announced today in Brisbane, as Queensland celebrated World Teachers’ Day.

Congratulations on winning the 2017 Excellence in Teaching Award.