Meet a Teacher

Mr Michael Robertson

Life before Girton

• Bachelor of Education (university of Ballarat)
• Redan Primary School (Ballarat) – teaching Science and Technoloy
• Malmsbury Primary School - PE specialist, Early Years Co-ordinator, Generalist teacher.

What I Love about Teaching

I love building relationships with students.  Getting to know and understand who they are and then guiding them along their journey to be their best self is an amazing responsibility but truly rewarding.

At Girton I love the the staff.  They make it a pleasure to come to school each day.  Always supportive, caring and looking to have fun.

What do you like best about the year level you teach?

I am currently teaching Preparatory students and I thoroughly enjoy it.  It is always amazing to see how much these students develop over a year.  From knowing a handful of letters to being able to read.  The look on a student’s face when they first begin to read is always priceless.

The preparatory students enjoy playing with their friends the most, closely followed by working with their Year six buddy and listening to stories.

My favourite classroom activity

One activity the preparatory students enjoy is listening to a story.  This could be a big book, a picture story book, a digital book or a novel.

The students develop a love of books from listening to good literature.  By reading to them I am constantly modelling what good readers do and they are learning to read.  We discuss what happened in the story, we predict what might happen, we look at rhyming words, we look at punctuation and the list goes on.

What difference can good teaching make?

Preparatory students who are successful can listen to others, willingly try new activities, can take turns, feel comfortable coming to school and have fun.

One of the most important things I do is create a classroom climate that is safe, comfortable and happy.  The next thing is to build a positive relationship with each student.   Listening to each child’s likes and dislikes, their worries, stories about their family and understanding their challenges.

Other Hats

• My co-curricular activity is Girton Games.  This is involves running games and activities for students from Prep to Year two.
• I am Junior School Sports Carnival Coordinator.
• My hobbies include playing golf and badminton.
• I enjoying building things and renovating.
• I love spending time with my family.