Cobden School
Principal profile: Jill Cogger-Mathieson
I had never wanted to be a teacher. My mother was a principal of a rural school and my father taught panel beating and sheet metal work to soldiers in the army. But later on, and when I found myself alone with two children, the importance of education became really key, not only for them but for myself. That's what led me back into education, and from there I searched to see what it was that I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
Teaching became important to me because I had worked with special needs children in the school that my children had attended. I could see a lot of injustices, and so going into teaching was a way for me to try to help make a difference for those kids.
I didn't start training until I was 28 years old. After a year at Auckland University, I went to Auckland Teachers' College. When I finished my training I came home to the West Coast to start my teaching career. Cobden really appealed because my grandparents lived just down the road, and I felt I had an affinity with the school, and although I hadn't gone to the school as a child, I knew I had my family around me. My cousins had attended Cobden School, and it just seemed the place to be.
I have been at Cobden for 15 years, with 18 months at Lake Brunner School. This is my sixth year as principal here. I never pictured myself as a principal, and felt a wee bit of a fraud when I won the position, but it's been a huge growth time for myself as well the school.
