Botsman award 2016

Kathleen Hannant

Kathleen Hannant is Head of Department English and International Studies at Centenary Heights State High School, Toowoomba. Over the past 10 years in particular, Kathleen has contributed enormously to improving the quality of English and Literacy teaching on the Darling Downs and beyond. She is a regular contributor at local ETAQ and ALEA events, at state conferences as well as being accepted to present at the upcoming ASFLA national conference. Kathleen has also been on the executive of the Darling Downs branch of ETAQ.

She is a trained tutor in the language program "Language and Literacy Classroom Applications of Functional Grammar and has regularly given her time to present this course in her school and to the Darling Downs teaching fraternity, the latter at weekends. Her training as a tutor in How Language Works and First Steps Reading is also reflected in her practice at Centenary Heights State High School where her leadership of literacy teaching has resulted in strong improvements in literacy achievement. Kathleen's colleagues and principal praise her ability to take challenging concepts about language, literature and literacy teaching and develop teaching resources to assist students and teachers to grasp these concepts as well as her ability to engage teachers. Her work as a literacy coach has meant she has worked with teachers across 3 campuses and across a wide range of KLA areas to develop their ability to teach literacy, all the time using her dry sense of humour and her gracious approach to engage her audience.

Kathleen's skills as an outstanding presenter and teacher are such that she was encouraged to enrol for her masters, her thesis focussing on Curriculum Literacies in Science, History and English. It was so highly regarded that it returned from the examiners; one asking for no changes and the other recommending she publish a paper in Literacy Learning: the Middle Years in the recent Nea Stewart Dore special edition. Acknowledged as a brilliant teacher researcher, she managed her masters, her role as English HOD and literacy coach of her school Centenary Heights as well as being a wife to Paul and mother to 4 school aged children.

Kathleen's work has been recognised for its excellence in a range of ways. Films of her English teaching and her literacy work across the curriculum were used in the recent EQ Literacy Training, she is a valued member of the Downs District Review panel for English, her work has been used as exemplar for pre-service teachers at QUT and she has given guest lectures to fourth year students. In all this her colleagues explain that her generosity of spirit, keen intellect and passion shine from her. Kathleen is a worthy recipient for the Peter Botsman award.