Introducing our new staff

I am very pleased and proud to introduce our newest St Helena staff recruits to the community.  We continue to be very fortunate in attracting committed and professional teachers and education support staff to our College.  Interestingly, we now have NINE ex-St Helena students employed on staff!  It's great to see them come full circle and contribute back to the College culture they enjoyed as students.

A big St Helena welcome to all our new colleagues.  

(Part 2 to follow in next fortnight's Bulletin) 

Eric Sekkouah

(Mathematics/Mathematics Domain Leader)

Eric has extensive experience teaching Years 7-12 Mathematics, Years 7-10 Science, Units 1-4 VCE Biology and Year 10 French.

His first impression of St Helena is positive, with high student expectations and strong staff collegiality.   

Eric has always found teaching extremely rewarding, and enjoys helping young people discover their true potential.  He is a master of four different languages, and is currently learning a fifth!

Liz Carnie

(Humanities/English)

Liz spent 12 years at Strathmore Secondary College and 6 years at Hazel Glen College before finding her way to St Helena.  

She has found everyone here friendly and helpful and says this is great because there are a lot of new things to learn!  Liz became a teacher after spending her Honours year undertaking a lot of research and realising she wasn't very good at sitting at a desk all day, and needed to do a job that involved doing different things every day and being with people.  

The following year she applied to do a Diploma of Education and during her first teaching round, discovered she loved teaching and it was where she wanted to be.   

She is looking forward to taking her children, aged 7 and 9, on their first overseas trip to Fiji this  year and hopefully to Japan in 2025.

Catherine Bates

(Classroom & Instrumental Music/Director of Music)

Catherine has a long history of teaching music, drama, voice, clarinet and saxophone and has been a Director of Music and Head of Performing Arts at her previous schools which include Patterson River SC, Trinity College Colac, Colac SC, Nhill College, Greenvale SC, Firbank Grammar School and Blackburn PS.   

She says the staff at St Helena are very friendly and the performing arts department is suitably crazy!  

Her earliest written record of saying she wanted to be a teacher (or marine biologist) was from grade 3, so it's something she's wanted to be for a while! Catherine decided music was what she wanted to teach when she was on an overseas school band tour at the end of year 9. She had so much fun on the tour and loved creating and sharing some amazing music. Catherine also saw the teachers having fun and building a different kind of relationship with the students. From that moment, she knew it was music she wanted to teach, to help build those relationships with students and create more amazing things, giving students wonderful experiences which would stay with them for a long time. (...Although she was tossing up still about doing marine biology right up until uni preferences were due!)

Something interesting about Catherine is that she was a state finalist in the 2019 Rural Ambassador Award, representing the Wimmera, and was named as the Hindmarsh Shire Citizen of the Year in 2020! 

Kelly Constance

(Science/Humanities)

Kelly joins the St Helena team after teaching Science and Humanities at Bayview Secondary College in Tasmania, and Williamstown High School here in Victoria.

She is enjoying the beautiful St Helena campus and the smell of the eucalyptus trees.

She became a teacher to join "a rare profession that encourages professionals in life-long learning and enables  you to serve the community".

Pre-teaching, Kelly was an archaeologist in the USA.

Teresa Wong

(Humanities/Philosophy)

Teresa has taught English, Humanities and Psychology so far in her career.  She finds St Helena well structured and supportive, and became a teacher to help youths through their life journey and to find their passions.   She has two cats and loves Greek Mythology.  

Sarah Le Page

(Business Management/Humanities)

Sarah previously taught Business Management, Humanities, VCAL and Economics at a community school in Yarra Junction, as a casual relief teacher in specialist settings, and has also worked at Hazel Glen College and Doncaster Secondary College.

Sarah finds St Helena a large, well managed school that takes pride in its reputation and that of its members including staff and students.

Sarah entered teaching to share her knowledge with others, and help them achieve the best they can.  She says teaching is an inate calling that shehas had since she was a child, although it took her a while to make it a reality!

When she's not teaching, Sarah loves karaoke and travelling and wants to go everywhere and see everything!

Aaron Priest

(Physical Education/Year 7 Manager)

Aaron previously taught at Sunshine North Secondary College, Greensborough Secondary College and ran his own business, Body Fit Training, in Ringwood.

Aaron worked as a relief teacher at St Helena in 2023 and says he was fortunate enough to be offered an opportunity to teach Year 7 Maths.   He says the groups of students he worked with were fantastic - full of character and enthusiasm - and make him laugh!

Aaron says he was lucky to be "pretty ok" at most sports, and becoming a PE teacher just seemed a good fit for him.

His interesting fact is that  he once got cornered by an elephant in Zimbabwe.  Obviously (and fortunately for us) he survived and lives to tell the tale.  

Chamilka Wickramasuriya

(Science/Biology)

Chamilka spent two years at Sale College teaching junior science and maths, and VCE Biology.

Chamilka says while St Helena is a huge school, the staff have been very supportive and welcoming and she has received very positive vibes so far.

Chamilka became a teacher to help young people achieve their best and actually enjoy being at school.  She also wants to contribute towards increasing interest in the fields of study that she is passionate about.

Chamilka has been learning traditional  Sri Lankan dancing for the past 20 years!

Mette Hemmingsen

(Wellbeing)

Mette has 20 years' experience working with YSAS (Youth Substance Advocacy Services) at the youth rehabilitation community Birribi, located in Eltham.  

The first things she noticed about her new workplace were lots of smiles and welcoming colleagues.  She enjoyed the breakfast on the first day and already loves the Wellbeing Hub set up and her team.

Mette wants to work with young people in a school setting because she really enjoys this age group; it is often when a young person's mental health concerns first appear and where peers and the wider community start to replace family as the young person's first point of reference.

Mette is Danish and says she can recommend some fantastic Danish shows on SBS free tv!  She loves and needs nature, and since her running days are over, she loves bike riding and swimming and is passionate about mind/body/spirit balance and connection.  She says she is trying to get in touch with a more creative side of herself and will keep us posted!

Samantha Rowley

(Administration/Reception)

Samantha previously worked in Donnybrook as an Integration Aide, and was a childcare worker for 15 years.   Samantha thinks St Helena is a great school where everyone is helpful and friendly.  She has always liked helping and supporting young people within a school setting and helping everyone in the schoool community.   Sam is also a singer, and has sung in front of thousands of people! 

Olivia Nielissen

(Inclusion: Learning Support Officer)

Olivia came to St Helena after working at Glen Katherine PS in their OSHC program.  It has struck her how connected the Inclusion Team is.   As an alumni student, she says she still adores how connected to nature the school is and is very surprised by how many new and improved buildings there are.

Olivia is passionate about giving every single young person the opportunity to grow and find themselves in a safe space.  She is studying adolescent development when she is not at St Helena.  Olivia loves reading and has participated in yearly reading challenges since she was in primary school!