A BORDER teacher’s dedication to assisting children with learning difficulties has been honoured by the school she served for nearly a decade.
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Trinity Anglican College’s tutorial centre is now known as The Maxwell Centre in recognition of Lyn Maxwell, who led the department from 2007 as it tripled in staff size.
College deputy principal Peter O’Neill described Mrs Maxwell as “the most passionate, committed teacher that I think I’ve worked with in my career”.
“If a student showed a sign or symptom of something, she would just spend hours and hours until she was able to give a staff member an idea or strategy to help that kid,” Mr O’Neill said.
“She would sacrifice a lot of herself to make sure that she did the right thing and she wouldn’t leave work until she was confident she’d found something that would help a particular student or their family.”
The school community was shocked earlier this year to learn Mrs Maxwell had been diagnosed with brain cancer.
Speaking from her hospital bed this week, Mrs Maxwell thanked Trinity for the naming honour and said she had simply relished the job.
“It was a position that if I could have written it, this is what I would have written,” she said. “Not many people could say that; if you were asked to write your perfect job, this was it.”
Mrs Maxwell had also worked in learning support in Queensland before she and husband Colin relocated to Thurgoona. Mr O’Neill sat on her interview panel for the Trinity position.
“All of a sudden this little lady walks in and just blew us away with her obvious passion for helping students with learning difficulties,” he said.
The deputy principal said before her illness, Mrs Maxwell had decided to retire and pursue other goals.
“But it’s interesting even when you talk to Lyn about the things she wanted to do, it was always about going to help other people,” he said.
“Everyone just appreciates and understands how important someone like Lyn is in a school.
“She’s a very, very well-respected member of staff, but also the families that she works with just love her.”
Mrs Maxwell said developing the tutorial centre had involved “a big learning curve for many of us, including me” but the school had always supported her ideas.
“When you find something that you love, you follow it with all your heart, really, and I did,” she said.
