Spotlight On: Lucy Stuart

Posted November 12, 2019 in Interviews & Spotlights, Teacher Spotlights By Community Relations

Lucy Stuart is Head of Year 7, a Middle School teacher and Middle School House Coordinator (Grove) at Wesley College. As someone who loves human connection, Lucy’s decision to become a teacher later in life has been incredibly rewarding for her, and for the College.

Why did you become a teacher?

I originally graduated as a geologist. Having come to Australia for backpacking, I then found work in northern Queensland exploring for gold – a far cry from my original job in a quarry in the north of England.  Various roles in underground and surface exploration in Australia and overseas, marriage, children and nearly 30 years later found myself spending more and more time in front of a computer crunching numbers for a living.  I prefer to be around people, and retrained to be a teacher as a mature (but not always maturely-behaved) student, in hope of having a role with more human connection.  Now, spending my days in a busy environment, as part of a large staff, with a huge number of students, I well and truly have found a profession with human connection in bucket-loads.

What is your favourite teaching memory?

I love that moment, particularly when it happens in Mathematics, when a student ‘gets it’.  You sense something just clicking into place for them, and a concept becomes clearer to them.  I also love it after a busy lesson, when students call back with a ‘thank you’ as they leave – gratitude is a healthy habit, and so are great manners.

Why Wesley?

This is my first workplace as a teacher and I still can’t believe my luck.  My planets must have aligned because I particularly wanted to work in Middle Schooling, and would have preferred to teach boys.  It just so happened that Wesley was advertising at the same time for a Mathematics/Science teacher.  I still consider myself lucky to be in a well-resourced school, and feel supported to try different things.  It’s cool coming to work and having a bit to do with teaching, swimming squads and House events.  There’s plenty of variety and things to get involved in.

Favourite quote?

I was going to go all high-brow and select something from Insta-worthy world leaders from the 20th century, but fell back upon one of my favourite comedians, Bill Bailey.  ‘People say “Bill, are you an optimist?”  And I say, “I hope so”.’

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