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In Janaury 2010, Schooldays Magazine awarded an Outstanding Community Education Award to Dr Linda Vining in recognition of her wide-ranging and continuing efforts to make education at every level more accessible to the public.
Linda is a forward-thinking educator who receives accolades from the business, government, education and community sectors for helping people understand and appreciate education better.
She has pioneered a new profession within education, School Marketing, to meet the changing need for schools to be more market-orientated and customer focused. Linda is regarded as a visionary leader, someone whose dynamism never dulls; a leader who pushes new frontiers, introduces new ideas and inspires others.
Through her textbooks, hundreds of articles, resource materials, market research, courses and conferences, she works with every school system and has trained thousands of educators to articulate and promote the work they do. In 2007, she introduced Australia’s first conference on school marketing.
The program allows the students in both schools to explore, via Skype technology, global environmental issues and other topics of common interest.
In early 2009 Woollahra Council approached the school to develop a collaborative project enabling senior citizens from the local area to learn basic computer skills, using the school’s resources and the skills of students from Kincoppal-Rose Bay.
Miriam developed a program which involved training students from Years 9 & 10 to work one on one with participants over the six week course. The response from the community was very positive, and many of the senior citizens were delighted to be able to keep track of their grandchildren through Facebook and e-mail. The 2010 program filled quickly and demand was so strong that a neighbouring independent boys’ school joined Kincoppal-Rose Bay in providing opportunities for senior citizens to participate in the course.
Miriam’s calm demeanour and humorous attitude allowed everyone to try something new and gain confidence from the experience.
In order to keep staff abreast of the latest technologies to support learning, Miriam provides opportunities for staff to gain expertise and confidence in using the wide range of resources at the school. She developed a clever way of attracting teachers to professional learning sessions, by first allowing them a number of “taster” sessions and snapshot presentations as part of a regular staff meeting. This way, teachers are alerted to the variety of technologies available for classroom application and are able to select the most relevant ICT courses to pursue further. At the last ICT training session, teachers could select Word 2007, Comic Life, Outlook 07, Adobe Illustrator, Synergetic or interactive whiteboard strategies for different year groups.
Miriam says, ”I enjoy working at Kincoppal-Rose Bay because we are developing independence in our students, by encouraging them to think for themselves, work in teams, solve problems and present their work to others for review and reflection. An holistic education, where students are given opportunities to explore and experience a wide range of disciplines, and develop their interests and expertise, is my ideal pedagogy, and that is what I am part of at Kincoppal-Rose Bay."
Miriam holds a B.Ed from National University of Ireland, a Masters in Information Technology from CSU and a Masters in e-learning from UTS (Sydney).
Miriam Meaney was nominated by Lynette Butler, Project Manager, Kincoppal-Rose Bay in Sydney.
This annual School Marketing Aforia is an innovative roving conference where delegates visit host schools over two days to examine best practice in marketing and customer relations so schools can project their quality features to the public and build respect and appreciation for the education profession.
Linda has an online international School Marketers Network so she can communicate weekly with more than 2,000 school marketing professionals and circulate ideas.
One of her most ambitious projects was the introduction of a bold new concept - The Education Expo™ to make information on all facets of education accessible to the public. The expo is a large complex event that has been running for 6 years. It has been an outstanding success due to the way Linda orchestrates schools from every sector, tertiary and training organisations, government agencies, local councils, businesses and education specialists. The event illustrates her vision, commitment to education, leadership talents, risk management and her entrepreneurial and communication skills.
Dr Linda Vining BA, DipEd(Primary), DipEd(Secondary), MEdAdmin, EdD, FACE is the Director of the Centre for Marketing Schools, is an executive member of the Australian College of Educators, South Australia Branch and a member of the management committee of the Council of Education Associations of South Australia.
NOMINATE AN AWARD WINNER
Do you know an outstanding educator worthy of award and recognition. Someone who goes way over and beyond what is expected of them? They might do something of significance within their school, or within their community that’s education focussed, they may help out students or families.
If you do, Schooldays wants to know about them. All you need to do is send an email to office [at] schooldaysmagazine.com telling us why you think they deserve recognition. Include yours and the recipients contact details with their photograph for publication. The information you send maybe subject to editing.
