To say that teaching was NOT Ross’s first choice for a career would be an understatement. After several false starts his mother and father were at least hopeful when he decided to “try a bit of teach’n”.
Upon graduation he found himself at Dawson Public School (Mt Druitt) for the first seven years of his career. A school in what was then considered one of the wilder areas of education; it was here that his fascination for human behaviour and the teaching of difficult students began.
Personal reasons created a need to move closer to home and four years were spent in the leafy northern suburbs of Sydney. From there he was deployed to be the founding teacher of the North Harbour Unit – a unit for conduct disordered adolescents.
In the five years spent at North Harbour he developed an interest in wilderness programs which led him to be selected to set up a departmental wilderness program for at-risk students on the Central Coast as its coordinator.
Chosen to establish the Umina HS Unit for Emotionally Disturbed Students in the position of Head Teacher Welfare Ross spent a further three years on the Central Coast. He transferred back to the North Harbour Unit as Head Teacher in 2000 before winning the position of founding Principal of Highlands School that he took up in 2002.
Outside of teaching and his family life Ross’s interests include motorcycling, coaching rugby, coaching rowing and fast food in all its glorious variations. |
