Gwenda Sanderson

BA.M.ED Stud.Dip Ed, Adv Dip BM, MACE

 

Gwenda Sanderson is the Foudning Director of Arrendell Education. Gwenda has over 30 years of experience as a primary and secondary teacher.  She also taught student teachers for seven years as a lecturer in Literacy and Children’s Literature at the University of Newcastle.

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Gwenda arrived from New Zealand in 1971 to train as a secondary teacher at Avondale College near Newcastle. She later trained in primary teaching at Newcastle University where she completed her Masters specialising in children with reading difficulties.  Gwenda undertook three years study towards a PhD looking at boys’ resistance to reading, but that endeavour was put on hold when she left university teaching to devote herself full time to Arrendell.

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Gwenda has worked with teachers locally and nationally, presenting seminars, conference papers and keynote addresses.  She has been a guest speaker at conferences in the United States, Canada and New Zealand. Her particular area of expertise is teaching literacy and English to upper primary and lower secondary students. Gwenda has a special interest in the needs of boys, motivating reluctant readers, and in teaching the craft and skills of narrative and assignment writing.

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In 1977 Gwenda began providing after school tuition to 28 secondary and primary students. She saw the need to provide extra support for students who needed more academic support than was available within their school context. This was not a criticism of the schools that the children came from, but the reality of mass education, class sizes of 30 or more, and limited access to specialised teachers with the training or experience in working with bright, underperforming children. She saw the importance of boosting children’s self esteem and their expectation of success by individual mentoring, and set about to provide a caring professional facility to make a difference in the lives of local children and young people.

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Today 200 Newcastle students attend classes at Arrendell Education every week and their lives are changed with the encouragement and dedication of ten full and part time teachers.