Kerrie Aquilina

The Southport School

Kerrie Aquilina demonstrates leadership across many aspects of The Southport School (TSS) community.

Her dedication to mentoring, supporting and leading staff is paramount in her approach.

In her 31 years as an educator, Kerrie has taken on multiple leadership roles to support her colleagues.

Fostering a collaborative environment for teachers, she continually guides staff, assisting them with their development of improved learning plans and outcomes, demonstrating ways to embed new and recognised pedagogical approaches so as student learning experiences are enhanced. 

She has been a District Network Coordinator for the Social Sciences as well as a Technology and Sports Coordinator at a school level.

As Acting Head of Curriculum, Kerrie organised and ran year level planning meetings where she provided PD for staff, exploring current research and best practise whilst also providing workshops on critical and creative thinking and ways to embed these into the classroom. Throughout this time, she also worked with staff, leading them through the Literacy and Numeracy Progressions process.

In addition, Kerrie has continued to workshop and guide staff in Guided Reading practises, assisting staff with the embedding of rich literature into their programming in a hands-on and practical manner.

Kerrie has been instrumental in the co-development of the school’s Writing and Reading Handbook/Policies, creating new documents to enhance staff understanding of what is required in this area and outlining school expectations within a practical document.

In this capacity, she organises and runs meetings where feedback opportunities are provided as well as presenting such documents to staff to ensure their understanding of these handbooks.

As a Literacy Mentor, Kerrie worked with staff to raise literacy levels whilst also organising reading resources across the school so as student and staff access to all resources was improved. She continually requests input from staff as to their needs and works towards making improvements to the benefit of all.

When broadening the experiences of students across the school, Kerrie introduced a School-Wide Poetry Recitation Competition and a School, Poetry Writing Competition.

To facilitate this process, she wrote assessment rubrics for staff, making this initiative seamless for both staff and students. This has enriched the literary experience for all students.

Her support is not only on a whole staff and cohort level, but on an individual level.

Kerrie is always open to staff seeking her advice regarding curricular matters. She spends her own time visiting classrooms and providing practical feedback for colleagues.

Kerrie is also deeply passionate about the wellbeing of all staff, implementing new initiatives for colleagues such as dance classes, morning teas and social events.

Across her career she has been a debating and sports coach, choreographer of major musicals and head of Public Speaking, amongst many other curricular and co-curricular roles.

Kerrie is highly respected by staff, students and parents of The Southport School.

Congratulations Kerrie on your nomination.