We would like to extend a warm welcome to the Clonard College community, the following new staff for 2023:
Ned Holland – Maths Teacher
Ned comes to us from Colac Secondary College, having previously worked at St Michael’s School, Palm Island.
One of Ned’s career highlights was teaching on Palm Island, living and working within an indigenous community located on the Great Barrier Reef. Another favourite career moment was the Colac Secondary senior snow camp last year, where he had an absolute ball teaching kids how to snowboard up at Mount Hotham.
Ned’s hobbies of surfing and golf take up the majority of his spare time and in winter he always tries to sneak in a snowboard trip.
Diane Braiden – Teacher & Learning Diversity Leader
Diane held a similar role at Killester College, Springvale and is very pleased to be continuing with Kildare Ministries and the Brigidine values.
Diane says the best part of her work is helping young people find their voice and confidence. Raising peoples’ understanding of disability is so very important.
Personally – connection to nature and the beach, photography (dibrai@insta), gardening, camping, family and friends.
Maggie Smith – Teacher & VET/SBAT Leader and VCE-VM Support
Previous to working at Clonard, Maggie spent 12 years working at Newcomb Secondary College. In her time there she held numerous roles, including sports coordinator, VET coordinator, SBAT coordinator, and what she sees as her most challenging and rewarding position being Pathways Coordinator, overseeing all Pathway programs at Newcomb SC. After attaining a Graduate Certificate in Career Development in 2014, she held this role from 2015 until the end of 2022. Helping students gain ideas, insight, direction and being there to support them on their career journeys.
In her spare time, she enjoys staying active, reading, listening to many different podcasts, and supporting the mighty Dee’s.
Her greatest joy in life comes from raising her two girls.
Stephanie Baulch – Careers & Pathways Advisor
Stephanie previously worked at Ballarat Grammar as a Careers Practitioner and teacher for the past two years. Before this, she was a Careers Consultant for the Department of Education on the Year 9 Morrisby careers program across Victoria. She also spent eight years teaching in rural Victoria (the Mallee) before relocating with her family. A career highlight is being able to form strong connections with students she has worked with and helping them to create an individual pathway to explore and achieve success.
Stephanie has two beautiful boys, Archer and Sonny, who are her world! Steph and her husband enjoy spending time as a family and taking their dog Frankie, a toy cavoodle on walks! She loves sport, the beach, and catching up with friends and extended family.
An interesting fact about Steph is that she doesn’t like chocolate!
Daniel Millie – English Teacher
Daniel comes to us from Thomas Carr College, Tarneit where in addition to teaching English and other subject areas he also ran the Country Experience program at Coragulac.
Daniel has taught in the United Arab Emirates, studied Arabic in Syria and English in Lebanon and served in the Australian Regular Army for 11 years. He enjoys sailing and surfing and patrols at the Torquay SLSC. Daniel is married to Zahidah and the two have a 20 year old son, Xavier.
Bernadette Barclay – Learning Support Officer
Bernadette is an Old Collegian (go Xavier!) and has 3 adult children, 2 boys and a girl, who are her greatest life achievement (so far).
She loves watching any sport (except golf…way too boring) and playing when she can. She is a fanatical St Kilda supporter, which makes life interesting living in Geelong, especially when her uncle and godfather played for and coached the Cats!!
Bernadette loves to travel and visits Bali often. She has an adopted family there and volunteers at an orphanage in Indonesia.
Jarrod Maine – English Teacher
Jarrod comes to Clonard after living in North East Victoria for the last five years. This year he will be teaching Years 8, 9 and 12 English.
He has been teaching since 2007, mostly in the Barwon South-West region with a stint at an international school in Indonesia. He lives in Geelong with his wife and three children, as well as a dog, cat, and bird. he says he’s definitely a language nerd and loves all forms of literature – his favourite books tend to be books like Lord of the Rings and Dune. Jarrod also loves a good (i.e. bad) pun. He has just finished his second week at Clonard and has been impressed by the strength of community and the warmth he has experienced as a new arrival and is looking forward to getting to know everyone.
Rachel Gastin – CRT Health and Psychology
Throughout her teaching career, Rachel has been drawn to teaching in International and Catholic Schools. In her early teaching years, Rachel worked in Melbourne at an international school teaching the MYP as well VCE curriculums. Moving overseas to Canada in 2019 continued to open doors in international teaching, working at an international school teaching IB and BC Curriculums. She previously worked in a co-educational Catholic school in Vancouver, Canada, and wanted to engage more with faithful practices by continuing to work in Catholic education, ultimately bringing her to Clonard College.
In her spare time, Rachel enjoys hiking and mountaineering, snowboarding, watching sunsets until it’s absolutely dark, gym, AFL, tennis and socialising with family and friends.
An interesting fact about Rachel is that she played an expedition game for Western Bulldogs AFLW in 2016 and wore Katie Brennan’s number, 16. Got a few kicks, but doesn’t think she played quite as well as her!
Bridget Rush – Counsellor & Student Services Team Leader
Bridget comes to us from sunny Queensland, where she worked as an inclusive education teacher at a special assistance school. One of her career highlights has been supporting young people in their transition from detention back into education.
In her spare time, she loves to hike and looks forward to exploring some national parks in Victoria.
She is a novice/enthusiast in the flying trapeze and enjoys learning new tricks.
