Paula Marsters-Sasa and her successor at Life Ed, Jonny Thompson.
Paula Marsters-Sasa and her successor at Life Ed, Jonny Thompson.
The Life Education Horowhenua branch has been given new life, now that a new coordinator has been appointed. Jonny Thompson brings years of teaching experience to the role, which has been in a bit of a slump in the past few years, not in the least thanks to Covid-19.
Jonnysaid it is his job, with the help of sidekick Harold the Giraffe, to visit local primary and intermediate schools to teach the health curriculum.
“It is about social wellbeing and mental heath plays an important role. Addiction to substances, including vaping, come up a lot.”
Jonny can take on a variety of subjects during his visits: “Whatever the schools wants.”
His territory runs from Tokomaru and Ōpiki in the north to Paekakariki in the south.
“Harold has his own mobile classrooms with interactive games, nice aromas wafting around. We want to be joyful wherever we go. Harold’s classroom is in a big truck which gets towed to each school by Emmerson’s.”
His predecessor, Paula, did the job for ten years, but moved into teaching a few years ago.
“She developed the programme we use here. The impact she has had is huge. When I show up somewhere they all go ‘oh, but you are not Paula’.”
Jonny has been a teacher for 10 years. He said the size of the school and the topics they want him to discuss determine how long he stays around.
“Schools usually buy us in on an annual basis for a set time.”
