EIT valedictorian Helen Monteith inspired by teaching, loving new job at Peterhead School in Flaxmere

Helen Monteith with Peterhead School pupils, from left, Eli Taare, Elaine-Kelly Tamati, Manauri Renninson (rear), Keola Hazel-Edwards and Azariah Fletcher.

Graduating this week, EIT valedictorian Helen Monteith says her guiding maxim is that "teaching is the one profession that creates all other professions".

From an unknown source, the saying inspires her approach to her new job, teaching at Peterhead School in Flaxmere.

Helen grew up in Dannevirke and attended Dannevirke High School. She then worked in banking before travelling to the UK on "her big OE".

Returning to New Zealand, she moved into the finance industry, working her way up to a finance manager's position in Wellington before leaving to start a family with husband Robert.

It was helping as a Playcentre and Kindergarten mum that ignited the mother-of-two's passion for children and learning.

That led to a teacher aide position at Bledisloe School in Napier where, encouraged by teachers, she decided to study for a bachelor of teaching (primary).

She admits to feeling a little nervous about starting at EIT as a mature student but says she needn't have been concerned. She enjoyed the company of younger classmates and felt protective towards them.

"We were a tight cohort," she says, "and there's a good circle of us who are pretty close."

Helen, Robert and sons Bryce, 15, and Declan, 13, live at Waiohiki, so it wasn't far for her to travel to the campus in Taradale. EIT's valedictorian selection panel says she juggled family life and study with aplomb.

As with other candidate teachers, she spent two days each week on campus and two days in the classroom at an assigned Hawke's Bay school.

Helen found the structure of the programme "absolutely valuable", allowing her and fellow students to become very comfortable with the classroom environment.

Placed at three schools over the three years of the degree and also having five extended practicums, she had hands-on experience of five different schools while at EIT.

The valedictorian selection panel says that, as a teacher aide, Helen brought considerable experience and a passion for inclusive education to the degree programme.

"Now," she says, "I am learning to apply what I learnt to the classroom. It was overwhelming starting as a teacher but the mentoring I'm offered at Peterhead School is fantastic and the experience is all the richer because I am sharing it with other teachers."

Honoured to have been chosen as a valedictorian, Helen jokes that the price of that is having to deliver a speech at the graduation ceremony.

She has the job well in hand, however, having written an address that stresses the value of the support students extend to one another and also acknowledges the help they have had from family and friends – the "unsung heroes" in the graduates' learning journeys.