| This committee is a self-nominated group who have previous connections and affiliations with Lil Gwyther and her Early Education Reform Group. Their current role is to ensure that Lil's legacy (see Background) lives on because of its relevance within current early school years curricilum. |
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Ross Gwyther has recently retired after working for 10 years as an organiser with the National Tertiary Education Union. Prior to that he spent many years as a research geophysicist at the University of Qld and at CSIRO studying earthquake processes. He has had a long involvement in educational issues, through the World Education Fellowship, the Public Education Coalition which was active in the 1990s, and the Early Education Reform Group, which his mother Lil Gwyther helped to establish in 1980. He is passionate about the importance of education, particularly early years education, as one of the most powerful ways of enabling all of us to develop our own unique capabilities to the fullest – a public good in the best sense. |
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Janny Boersma spent her working life as an early childhood teacher and was active in EERG from its inception. The EERG group was instrumental in two major developments in Qld education, the growth of multi-age education in early years teaching in many State and private schools, and in the establishment of the Prep year in Qld State Schooling. |
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Felicity McArdle is Associate Professor at Charles Sturt University, NSW and A/Professor at QUT, School of Early Childhood (Adjunct). Before working in Teacher Education at universities, she taught for over 14 years, in urban, rural, and remote districts, in before school settings, and in Primary schools. She was a member of the consortium that wrote the first national framework for the early years in Australia, the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF). She is co-author of the book “The Trouble with Play” (Grieshaber & McArdle, 2010), and more recently has co-authored “Being an early childhood educator: bringing theory and practice together” (McArdle, Gibson, & Zollo. 2015). |
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Lyn Winch was Principal for 30 years at Chevallum State School on the Sunshine Coast. Lyn remains committed to learning and futures orientated curriculum reform not only at the local but also at the State and National levels. This is reflected in her participation in many professional organisations such as QSA, ACSA and ANSN. She believes that to be a good professional, one must be actively engaged in the union. She has held many positions in the QTU and AEU including QTU Hon Vice President (6 years), QTU State Executive of the Queensland Teachers’ Union, Chair of the Education Administrators Committee and Curriculum Committees of the QTU, and many Education Department Curriculum Reference Groups. Lyn was chair of the AEU National Principals Committee and on AEU executive. |
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Noelene McBride has been involved in many aspects of Early Chilhood Education over a period of 40 years as a teacher, teacher educator, parent and more recently a grandparent. She is passionate about providing the best educational experiences and opportunities for young children and has been actively involved in groups who advocate for the rights of young children. |
