Peter Botsman Award 2016

Grace Loyden

Grace Loyden has made a significant contribution to English education in Queensland. Grace has spent the last decade teaching English in the outback town of Mount Isa. A Head of Senior English early in her career, Grace has had a significant role in mentoring beginning English teachers. In the isolated environment of north Queensland, she has worked tirelessly to keep herself abreast of research and development in English education, and has built capacity in her colleagues, by devoting hours of her own time to support her colleagues through moderation and professional learning communities. Grace has been the recipient of ETAQ bursaries, and often travels extensive distances to attend professional development in the area of English education. She has, indeed, worked hard to overcome the tyranny of distance.
Grace has also been very active in supporting her students in public speaking competitions as well as giving her students authentic writing opportunities by supporting them to write book reviews for journals on English teaching. She is a passionate advocate of her subject with students keen to show their appreciation of her work.
Grace is innovative in her leadership in English in her school. She has designed an elective using the structure of a Short Course in English that has resulted in supporting year 10 students many of whom are indigenous to pass English for the first time since enrolling in high school. She has also revolutionised the means of submission of multimodal assessment in her school, resulting in a dramatic increase in outcomes in both English Communication and Authority English. Grace has also been instrumental in a wide range of professional development around literacy in her school.
Grace's expertise has been recognized beyond Mount Isa as she has been a district review panelist for a number of years and is currently on the Expert Writing Team for the new English syllabus. She has been a QCS Test Writing Task Marker and has been a marker for the External Exam Trial for English.
Grace is currently studying her Masters in Education at QUT and is researching the extent to which tacit knowledge informs teachers' application of standards in English.
Her contributions to quality English teaching both in her own school and beyond make Grace Loyden a deserving recipient of this award.