Ms Wendy Powson

Wendy Powson is currently the Principal of Lilydale High School, situated in the Yarra Valley with an enrolment of 1500 students. She studied Human Movement in the late 1980s and then went on to complete a Graduate Diploma of Education. She began her teaching career as a casual relief teacher working in a number of schools in the eastern suburbs. Wendy became the Head of Junior School at Lilydale High and then Assistant Principal in 2005. In 2015, she took over as the first female Principal and has been leading the school with a strong leadership team of four Assistant Principals and 18 Leading teachers for the past 10 years. She encourages her teaching staff to work with preservice teachers to ensure our next generation of educators have every opportunity to experience the role of not only the teacher, but mentor and coach to young people.

She is the Vice President of the Victorian branch of the Australian Principal’s Association an organisation that supports principals across the state and is also one of the Victorian members of the Federal Branch. In this capacity, she has recently had the opportunity to travel to Canberra to meet with the Federal Education Minister to discuss the current issues impacting education in Australia and more specifically, Victoria.

In 2016, she was made a Fellow of the Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation having spent 8 years on the board and always enjoying the opportunity to return to the place it all began with the physical education fraternity. ACHPER provides professional learning opportunities for Physical Education and Health teachers with their annual conference held at Monash University.