St Cuthbert’s Teacher Aces History with Award

10 September 2015

St Cuthbert’s Teacher Aces History with Award

St Cuthbert’s College Head of History, Lisa Mave, has been awarded a coveted ISNZ Honours Award for Service to History at a special assembly in her honor on September 7.

Lisa’s colleagues nominated her for the award, which she describes as humbling, “The fact that my peers have considered me for this and seen my hard work is really nice and I am extremely humbled that they feel this way.”

Members of staff describe Lisa as open, collaborative and empowering. Her passion for history and desire to share her vision saw her appointed as Head of History at St Cuthbert’s in 2008. As part of the professional learning team, Lisa has made history come alive at the College.

Not only has she increased the number of students taking History in the College but also boosted student achievement. 60% of NCEA History students are endorsed at Excellence and 55% of IB History students gain the top grade of 7, while only 5% do internationally.

Lisa believes these results are a win for the subject of History in a generation that is future focused.

“In today’s society students favouring History isn’t always the case. There is a push to Science and Technology, so the fact that our results are encouraging more students to study History is a success in itself.”

Her students describe her as inspirational, a glimpse of which can be seen in student comments supporting the award entry, “Mrs Mave is a superb History teacher. This year in History I have learnt not just about the subject but some of the most important lessons on my life.”

Lisa’s focus is to ensure that the young women emerging from the St Cuthbert’s are leaving confident and able to identify their place in society.

She says, “The students here go on to do really important things and its crucial they get a balanced view of different groups in society to broaden their world view. History is a really important way to encourage our young women to be strong.”

With strong views about women’s role in society, Lisa uses her time to educate girls about history’s important role in feminism today, “Given that I am a feminist I want my students to have a strong social conscience. So if they think I’m an inspiration then they got the message.”

If she could do it all again Lisa wouldn’t have it any other way, “I love History and it’s amazing to be able to engage in something I enjoy every day.”

ENDS

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