Rutherglen Primary School has its first woman principal since it was founded in 1869.
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Karryn Williams, who is also a former pupil of the school, said she hoped her appointment would inspire young girls in Rutherglen to dream big.
“I see it as something for girls to see that it’s important to aspire high, and not to think that because you’re from a country town that’s a barrier to aiming high,” she said.
“I’ve been lucky enough to travel the world and work for a number of different schools in the independent and government system, and being a principal is always something I’ve wanted to do.”
Born in Rutherglen, Ms Williams went to its primary and secondary school before moving to Geelong to study teaching at Deakin.
She then got her masters degree from the Queensland University of Technology and decided to try her luck overseas.
After teaching stints in England and Canada Ms Williams returned to Australia, taking up posts at Townsville then Melbourne.
Along with her husband she decided to move back to Rutherglen to raise their young children, and she has taught at its primary school for the past six years.
But she always had a burning ambition in her heart to become a principal one day.
Fortunately for Ms Williams her predecessor, Ross Martin, encouraged her to apply for the role upon his retirement last year.
“It’s something I’ve always really wanted to do and aspired to do,” she said.
And her CV shows she’s prepared for the gig.
Last year Ms Williams took part in a program run by the prestigious Bastow Institute of Educational Leadership, which is run by the government and aims to foster leadership in teaching.
Ms Williams got to spend two months in Benalla P-12 College shadowing its principal Barbara O’Brien.
The experience sealed the deal in Ms Williams’ mind that she was ready to take the step from the classroom into the principal’s office.
“It’s about taking accountability across the whole school,” she said.
“You need to be looking at the bigger picture and the direction in which the school’s going.”
She listed overseeing the introduction of the new Victorian curriculum as a key priority, which includes a strong focus on the foundation skills of literacy and numeracy and on personal and social skills, thinking skills and new areas of learning such as computational thinking. “Our staff work very hard here and they’re very committed,” she said.
“Acknowledging and respecting what teachers do is really important, and I think that comes not just from within the school but outside in the wider community as well.”
