Our People

Lois Chick

MNZM, MEd (Cant), ADipT (NZDE)
Adjunct Tutor
Member of NZGSE’s Board of Directors
Member of NZGSE’s Advisory Board

Lois is a founder of NZGSE and a highly experienced teacher educator.  Lois taught at eight primary and intermediate schools around New Zealand and at special schools in New Zealand and England.  Before the establishment of NZGSE in 1996, she worked at a college of education for six years.  Lois is widely regarded for her practical approach to classroom teaching, and her expertise in learning support.  Lois has held governance roles in special education and been the board chair of two special schools.  She is co-author of Training Teachers Properly:  a book ready for publication.  Lois was appointed as a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to education, in the 2020 Queen’s Birthday Honours.  Lois is now heavily involved in the activities of the New Zealand Choral Federation.

Glenda Climo

Office Manager

Glenda joined NZGSE staff in 2004 as Administrative Assistant and was promoted to Office Manager in 2008.  Her wealth of experience includes administration roles at government departments and schools.  She is the fount of commonsense in the Ngā Hautū.  Glenda and her husband breed Murray Grey cattle and have been Ambassadors for the Canterbury A&P Association.

Anne Ditcher 

BSc(Hons) (Herts), BA(Hons) (Cant), PhD (Bristol), GradCertTEAL (Massey), DipT (NZGSE)
Tutor

Anne’s first career was in engineering and she began as an engineering apprentice at Hawker Siddely Aviation in the UK.  Anne then moved down an academic pathway and completed a PhD in Engineering at the University of Bristol.  From 1981 to 2002 Anne lectured in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Canterbury, and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2000.  Having achieved her goals in engineering she trained as a primary teaching at NZGSE and then taught at Riccarton Primary School.  As well as teaching a Year 7/8 class, her responsibilities included being curriculum leader in Mathematics and Technology, and teacher in charge of ICT.  Anne has been on NZGSE’s staff since 2015, and has been the Primary Programme Leader.

Paula Doré

TTC (NZDE)
Adjunct Tutor

Paula is a highly experienced primary teacher who is currently the Learning Support Coordinator at Heaton Normal Intermediate School.  Paula was a tutor at NZGSE in the organisation’s early days of operation.  She now contributes to the teaching for NZGSE’s learning support practicum.

Jude Gray

BEd, DipT (Otago)
Adjunct Tutor

Jude is NZGSE’s primary Art tutor.  She is Head of Visual Art at The Cathedral Grammar School. Away from teaching, Jude is an outdoors enthusiast.

Janine Greer

BSocSc (Lincoln), GDipT (NZGSE)
Adjunct and Relief Tutor

Janine began her teaching career at South Hornby, followed by three years at Our Lady of Victories School in Christchurch.  A move to Scotland was next where she worked at Sacred Heart Primary School in Penicuik, followed by a period of supply teaching for the Midlothian Council.  On her return to Christchurch in 2008, she began working at Spreydon School and has been there ever since in a variety of roles.  She is currently the Reading Recovery teacher there, working 0.6.  Janine’s areas of responsibility at Spreydon School have included early childhood transition, storytelling lead, library lead, SharpReading trainer and ELS delivery.  Janine previously worked for NZGSE as a tutor for one term in 2020.

Rosey Hart

BA (VUW), GDipT (NZGSE)
Adjunct Tutor

Rosey was teacher at New Brighton Catholic School until 2023, and was the bicultural leader there.  She has been a supervising teacher many times for NZGSE’s interns completing teaching practice.  Rosey is a trained Reading Recovery teacher.  She is currently studying at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa while working as a release teacher.  At  NZGSE, she teaches primary interns about the teaching of Social Sciences.

Suzi Hansen

Administration Assistant

Suzi is often the first person visitors meet at NZGSE.  She is responsible for our reception and assists Glenda Climo – the Office Manager.  She has worked in many administrative roles in the commercial world and community organisations.  In her spare time Suzi is an enthusiastic quilter.

Jodine Hardwicke

BA (Cant), MSSL (VUW), PGDipEd, (Massey), GDipT (NZGSE)
Kaiarataki

Jodine joined the NZGSE team at the start of 2024 after a diverse and successful teaching career in New Zealand and Australia.  She began teaching in 2007.  Jodine has taught in six different secondary schools, and held leadership roles in four of them.  Her two most recent teaching positions were in Christchurch.  She was Head of Senior School at Haeata Community Campus.  She then moved to Te Aratai College, where she was Head of the Learning Area English, and the Leader of Māori Achievement.  Jodine is committed to social justice in education and to closing the gaps of inequity that can exist in schools.

Rachael Hawkey

MusB(Hons), PhD (Cant), ATCL, DipT (NZGSE)
Kaihautū

Rachael trained as a teacher at NZGSE in 1997 in the inaugural group of secondary interns.  After a short time teaching music at Ashburton College, she was appointed to the staff of St Bede’s College where she taught until May 2018.  For most of this time, she held the senior position of Head of Faculty Arts.  Through such long service at the College, she has had a deep impact on the musical and cultural lives of many boys.  Rachael is an enthusiastic musician and a member of the Jubilate Singers.  Before her appointment as Kaihautū, she had been NZGSE’s Secondary Programme Leader and also shared the role of Manager of Initial Teacher Education.

Melissa Himin

BSc(Hons) (Lincoln), GDipT
Relief Tutor

Mel is an NZGSE graduate who started her teaching career at Shirley Boys’ High School in 2009.  She taught mathematics in her first year and then swapped to science subjects, achieving rapid promotion to the position of Head of the Science Department with a staff of 15 teachers.  Mel joined the NZGSE staff at the start of 2013, and was first promoted to Secondary Programme Leader, and then to Manager of Initial Teacher Education.  She later stepped away from NZGSE to raise her family.

Kevin Knight

MNZM, JP, BSc, DipEd (Cant), MEd, PGDipEdPs (Otago), PhD (Monash), DipTchg (NZDE)
Manahautū
Member of NZGSE’s Board of Directors
Member of NZGSE’s Advisory Board

Kevin is a founder of NZGSE and a highly experienced teacher educator.  He entered the education service as a secondary mathematics teacher and taught in secondary schools in New Zealand and Australia.  He has been a secondary school principal.  Kevin is also an educational psychologist and practised in Gisborne and Christchurch before working as a college of education lecturer for five years.  Kevin is the developer of the 8People model of teacher practice, and he is in high demand throughout New Zealand and Australia for his expertise in classroom behaviour management, mentoring and teacher appraisal.  He was a member of the former New Zealand Teachers Council. He is co-author of Training Teachers Properly:  a book ready for publication.   Kevin was appointed as a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to education, in the 2020 Queen’s Birthday Honours.

Helena McAlister

BA, MEd (Cant), DipTePīnakitanga (TWoA), GDipT (NZGSE)
Kaihautū

Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Awa and Ngai Tai.  With Māori, Samoan and European ancestry, Helena embodies the diversity that is modern New Zealand.  Her strong knowledge of te reo Māori enhanced her teaching at Elmwood Normal School and Te Waka Unua School, where she was the senior teacher of the bilingual class.  Helena’s Master of Education degree is in Māori immersion and bilingual teaching. In addition to her work with interns, she is conducting doctoral research on te reo Māori acquisition.  She joined the primary team of tutors at NZGSE at the start of 2018, and was promoted to Kaihautū from the start of 2022.

Lee Parkinson

HND (SEME)
Chair of NZGSE’s Advisory Board

Lee first became involved with NZGSE in 2020 through his role as a Strategic Partner at Strategy Creative. He now chairs NZGSE’s Advisory Board.  After 20 years in the British Army, Lee embarked on a career in sales and marketing on the client side, followed by a move to the agency side.  His long and diverse career has included CEO of Hyperactive, Founder of TOUCHCAST / NEXT, Member of the Science and Society Reference Group for the NZ Government’s Science and Society Project, Board Member of the Wellington Zoo Trust, and leadership roles in several other strategic agencies.

Caro Searell

BTchLn (CCE), MEd (Cant), TTC (NZDE)
Tutor

Caro’s extensive teaching career has spanned more than four decades.  She has taught in eight different Canterbury schools, and is best known for her 17 years as Team Leader of the Senior School (Years 4, 5 &6) at Elmwood Normal School.  Her passion for teaching, and her interest in research, shape the approach to her work with school children and in supporting teachers-in-training.  She has been a frequent supervising teacher for NZGSE primary interns.  Caro has a particular interest in the importance of leadership and in how relational trust is the key to its success.

Regan Stokes

BA, MMIL (Cant), MMLE (TWoA), GDipT (NZGSE)
Adjunct Tutor

Ngāi Te Rangi.  Regan was formerly Head of Te Reo Māori at Hagley College, and now works as a consultant in te reo Māori me ōna tikanga.  (Regan is also known as Kupu.) He is a Registered Professional Translator and Interpreter of Te Reo Māori.  Kupu teaches te reo Māori to both primary and secondary interns at NZGSE. He is also a member of NZGSE’s Wānanga, formed to debate and develop the expression of tikanga Māori and te reo Māori at NZGSE.

Ginnie Thorner

BEd, DipT (Massey), MDramaEd (Griffith)
Adjunct Tutor

Ginnie is NZGSE’s longest-serving adjunct tutor and teaches primary interns about the teaching of Dance and Drama.  She is a Dance and Drama teacher at St Andrew’s College, and has produced and directed many Middle School and Preparatory School productions there.

Elizabeth Wilson

BA(Hons) (Cant), MSpecTchg (Massey), CELTA, GDipT (NZGSE)
Adjunct Tutor

Lizzy began her teaching career as a teacher as teacher of English, and as teacher-in-charge of ESOL, at Shirley Boys’ High School.  She added the role of Director of Gifted and Talented to her work, and since 2022 she has been the Learning Support Coordinator there.  Lizzy has a special interest in educational equity for neurodiverse learners.  She is also a Ministry of Education PLD Facilitiator.  Lizzy has recently commenced doctoral studies at Massey University.  She contributes to the teaching for NZGSE’s learning support practicum.