After graduating Year 6 at St John’s School in 2003, it’s come as a bit of a surprise to Jada Parisi that she’s back there 15 years later working as a teacher.
Teaching wasn’t the profession Jada chose to pursue after finishing her HSC.
She started out studying and working in Public Relations in Sydney before moving to Perth.
“I always wanted to do teaching, I just sort of got pushed in other directions. I guess I just really didn’t know what I wanted to do when I was younger.
“So with gift of the gab I went with public relations and then when I was living in Perth I was doing some nannying and really, really enjoying it so I decided I would go back to uni,” Jada said.
She studied at Edith Cowan University in Mount Lawley in Perth and received her Graduate Diploma of Education Primary.
The St John’s posting came up and she decided to apply and was accepted for her first permanent teaching position.
“Perth is such a long way away.
“Cobar is just a good place and I wanted to move back for family reasons—my grandparents are not getting any younger.”
Jada is keen to get to know all her students (she already knows many of them and their families).
“I hope they’ll find me as a bright, bubbly person that the kids can trust. My objective is that the kids will want to come to school every day and they’ll enjoy being here, and everything else will just flow on from that.”
Jada has a passion for English and reading and hopes all the extra resources she’s bought for her classroom (which include books about motorbikes and footy) will encourage her students to read as much as possible.
“English is my favourite subject, then of course PE,” she said.
And while she admits to not having a lot of maths ability while she was at school, she proudly said she’s now a good maths teacher.
Since returning to the school, Jada has noticed the classroom layout hasn’t changed much since she was a student, but she’s noticed a lot of positive changes to the playground and loves that the school has a brand new state of the art hall.
There’s also interactive whiteboards and split system air conditioning in the classrooms, and students have access to more technology and learning equipment than she did.
Well before the school year started, Jada was in her classroom getting it ready for her students.
In addition to sorting cupboards and storage and labelling everything, Jada enlisted the help of her mum to make colourful chair covers for the students’ chairs.
“Studies have shown that the more vibrant, energetic and exciting your classroom is the more the children are inclined to learn,” she said.
“It’s great that I have been given the opportunity to be able to teach here.
“It’s nice and familiar, with people like Helen Polack and Cathy Manns, they were teaching at St John’s when I was learning here.”
