IEU Rep Lauren Walters is a rising star of the education world, winning two awards this year for her innovative approach to teaching and her work during COVID-19 lockdowns.
Lauren (pictured left) teaches Maths at St Agnes Catholic High School in Rooty Hill, in Sydney’s west. She was named Education Rising Star of the Year at the Australian Education Awards and won the Commonwealth Bank Early Career Teacher of the Year Award.
In her fifth year of teaching, she started out at St Dominic’s College in Kingswood.
Lauren took a circuitous route to becoming IEU Rep. She attended a P&C meeting at her children’s government school (she has twin eight-year-old boys and a five-year-old boy) and was impressed by a presentation by the NSW Teachers Federation Rep.
After sharing information from that Rep with colleagues on Facebook, her IEU Rep suggested she might be the right person for the role. She took the reins late last year.
Lauren is keen to promote union causes, along with her passion for the profession.
“I just love teaching,” she said. “I love my students and I love my school. If there’s anything we can do as a union to improve things and stop people leaving this profession, I will do it.”
She practices ‘flipped teaching’ with her students. A huge fan of online Maths teacher Eddie Woo, she creates videos covering the Maths curriculum, which students can watch for homework, while in class they work through the challenging problems.
“It makes sense to me that rather than do all the hard bits for homework, hoping that parents can help, we do them in class together, and they watch the videos with all the content at home,” she said.