Retiring St Brendan's Primary School principal Paula Stevenson is flanked by Year 1 student Allay Guljok, 7, and Prep student Nyla Makar, 5. Back, from left, is Year 6 student Jasmine Chol, 11, Year 5 students Seth Arthur, 11, and Peyton Van Houts, 11, and Year 3 student Willow Ryan, 9.
Photo by
Bree Harding
Forty-seven years ago and fresh out of Mercy Teachers’ College in Ascot Vale, Paula Stevenson’s foray into teaching was a baptism of fire.
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Arriving in Shepparton at St Brendan’s Primary School in 1977 where a nun was the principal, she was put straight to work teaching a huge class of 38 Preps.
She was their classroom teacher, but also all their specialist teachers rolled into one — art, physical education, music, you name it.
The challenging initiation didn’t scare her off. Instead, it inspired her unwavering passion for her career and the school she retired from this week, which remains to this day.
For the past 13 years, she’s led St Brendan’s Primary School as principal.
Before that, she spent almost seven years in the deputy principal’s chair.
“Over the 47 years, I’ve done some other things, but I’ve always had my hand in things at St Brendan’s, even when I had my children, who came here, I used to come back and do a day or two,” Mrs Stevenson said.
“Then I worked at a couple of other Catholic schools in a welfare role.”
Those schools included Sacred Heart School in Tatura, St Mary’s Primary School in Mooroopna and St Mel’s Primary School in Shepparton, where she worked at each one day a week.
She took on a counselling role at St Brendan’s and worked at a couple of other government schools before returning to St Brendan’s as a home school liaison.
“One of my passions has been in the pastoral care of students,” Mrs Stevenson said.
“Coming back here, one of our big changes — that changed us all for the better — was when we had all of our refugee families arrive, 10 families, from the Congo.
“Our school community, parents, teachers, went beyond what they had to do.”
She said the families knew very little English and the community supported them in the home and with preparing them for school.
“Now our school is an extremely multicultural school and we’re so proud of it,” Mrs Stevenson said.
“We have children from all different cultures and all different religious beliefs, not just Catholic, so that’s added another different dimension to our school as well.”
She said the multicultural growth at the school had been the biggest change throughout her journey, with few varied cultures enrolled when she started working to now having around 33.
“It’s lovely to see the children all getting along together and working as one; they don’t really see colour, which is great,” Mrs Stevenson said.
Joel Brian, Mrs Stevenson’s deputy for the past three years and a junior leader before that, will move into the top position in 2025.
She said she was leaving the school in safe and capable hands with Mr Brian, who has been at the school for 10 years and is equipped with lengthy leadership experience.
Mrs Stevenson said she was retiring with mixed emotions, but with six grandchildren, five of whom live in Melbourne, she was excited to spend more time with family and at her beloved Collingwood Magpies’ games when footy season rolled around again next year.
“We’re mad Collingwood supporters,” she said.
“The kids (at St Brendan’s) don’t want me to come back on footy colours day because we put in money and whoever’s team wins it goes to charity and the theme song goes over the P.A. — and Collingwood has won every year.
“I had one little girl say, ‘I’m going to miss you so much, but I reckon we might win footy colours day because you won’t be here’.”
Retiring St Brendan's Primary School principal Paula Stevenson with Year 1 student Allay Guljok, 7, and the book of children’s artwork and sentiments for her that they presented to her during the morning’s assembly on December 12.
Photo by
Bree Harding
During the school’s final assembly for the year, Mrs Stevenson was presented with a bouquet of handmade felt flowers, a hard-bound book filled with messages, drawings and reflections, and an upbeat rendition of Hey Micky with its original lyrics replaced by some personalised especially for the outgoing principal.
Paula was touched to learn she’s “more amazing than animals” to some of the animal-loving students at the school when she read the book they’d made for her.
Photo by
Bree Harding
She is looking forward to travelling in Australia with her also retired husband, Phil, and internationally with her sister, but will always miss the career she never once considered switching from throughout her working life.
“Teaching is a fantastic profession because it’s very different from anything else,” Mrs Stevenson said.
“You can walk through here (the school) on different days and you might feel a bit off and you have a student walk up and say something lovely to you and it changes your mood.
“They do say very cute things that you wouldn’t get in any other workplace.”
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