Macintyre High School principal Lindsay Paul was humbled to receive the John Laing Professional Development Award for 2018.
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Mr Paul attended an awards ceremony, conducted by the Australian Primary Principals’ Association on behalf of Principals Australia Institute, on Monday.
It was there NSW Minister for Education Robert Stokes announced Mr Paul as this year’s deserving recipient.
Nominated by the NSW Secondary Principals Council, the local man said it was nice to be recognised for his work around professional development.
“It was pretty humbling; some amazing people have received this award in the past.”
Apart from his role as principal of Macintyre High School, Mr Paul is also an executive on the NSW Secondary Principals Council and president of the New England Secondary Principals Council.
“We have a good professional learning program here at school but also I’ve been on the executive of the New England Secondary Principals for a number of years now, president the last couple of years, and I try to organise a strong professional learning focus in that group too,” he said.
Mr Paul's portfolio area, whilst on the NSW Secondary Principals’ Council for the last eight years, has been professional learning.
He has been responsible for organising professional learning activities for secondary principals across the state.
The local principal believes professional learning is imperative for educators as the world continues to evolve.
“We assist students to be best prepared for the future, which continues to change, so we have to grow and change, and that requires learning.”
Mr Paul said an important part of professional learning was being exposed to ideas from external experts which sometimes put country educators at a disadvantage.
“It makes it more expensive and you have to travel to do so but the greatest source of professional learning is actually from each other, research will show that; we are doing some incredible things in country areas.
“It really is about teachers working together collaboratively within their own schools and across other schools. We can do that just as well as our city counterparts,” he said.
The John Laing Professional Development Award honours a former Tasmanian school principal who worked for the then Australian Principals Association Professional Development Council.
Mr Laing was responsible for an initiative to gather school principals for national professional learning programs to support their role as school leaders in the 1990s.
