Bill+Gilpin

My name is Bill Gilpin and the purpose of this site is to share information in regards to my action research project at Monash University this year. I have been involved in education since 1980. During that time I have taught in a single teacher school, primary schools, and secondary schools in various roles from prep to year 10 including: Physical Education, English as a Second Language, History, and as a Generalist Classroom Primary Teacher. I have been fortunate to work in a range of public schools throughout the state of Victoria. In 2000 I was appointed as principal at Newport Lakes Primary and since 2005 I have been the principal at Deer Park West Primary.

I completed my first teaching course a Bachelor of Arts (education) at Deakin University in 1980 and a Bachelor of Education at Melbourne State College in 1983. In 1997 I completed a Graduate Diploma in Educational Administration at the University of Melbourne and in 2000 a Master of Education at the University of Melbourne. In 1997 I received accreditation by the Department of Education in Victoria as a Principal. In 1992 I received an International Teaching Fellowship to teach in Pataskala, Ohio, USA for the year.

In 2007 I was selected by the Department of Education to be part of the High Performing Principals Program. As part of the program I was funded to research mentoring first year principals. In 2007 and 2008 I travelled to the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates. Whilst in the United Kingdom I visited schools in England and Scotland and attended conferences. I visited the Victorian School in Sharjah where Rob Blatchford was the foundation Principal and two other schools in Dubai overseen by a colleague I worked with in the Western Region, Norm Dean.

In 2007 and 2008 I was invited to participate in the Principals’ Common with the Deputy Secretary of Education and was the network chair for the Harvester Principal network for 2006 and 2007. Currently, I am on the Deer Park/Sunshine Principal Network executive committee. I have been a participant as a mentor in the Eleanor Davis program in 2006 and 2009 and have been selected to mentor three new principals since 2005.

In 2009 I received a scholarship to study towards the Master in School Leadership degree at Monash University which I successfully completed in 2010.