Student Reporters: Lilian, Matisse, Juno, Anvesha, Maddie, Rishabh

Welcome to the special edition of the Teach NSW Podcast. We are the student reporters for the 2025 Game Changer Challenge.

My name is Lilian from Ryde Secondary College.

My name is Matisse from Moorebank High School.

My name is Juno from Richmond River High.

My name is Anvesha from Cherrybrook Technology.

My name is Maddie from Kooringal High School.

My name is Rishabh from Parramatta High School.

Before we begin, we'd like to acknowledge that this episode was recorded on the homelands of the Dharag people. We pay respect to Elders past, present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander peoples listening today.

In this special edition you will hear from a range of teachers who are mentoring students that have been selected as finalists of the Game Changer Challenge.

Interview one

Student Reporter

Today we have Miss Vishwanathan.

Miss Vishwanathan

Hello.

Student Reporter

How did you know that you wanted to become a teacher?

Miss Vishwanathan

What a question. I always wanted to be a teacher when I was in school myself. I loved English and I loved drama. Which is why I became an English and a Drama teacher.

Student Reporter

Did anyone inspire you to become a teacher or did you always want to and you knew that?

Miss Vishwanathan

Yeah, really good question. Honestly, I had phenomenal teachers in my time and I don't think I would have chosen to pursue this path if I hadn't had really inspiring teachers. I think my Year 12 English teacher in particular was just such a force of life and something that I really value is the relationships that you can build as a teacher and how fundamental they are.

And she absolutely had such a profound impact on me. I felt so cared for and she believed in us so much and it wasn't necessarily about the marks, but she kind of saw us as people and that's something that really inspired me.

Student Reporter

Overall, how are you finding the Game Changer experience?

Miss Vishwanathan

I'm having a great time. Look, I'm having a great time as somebody who's sitting on the sidelines and watching on. I think it's awesome and I'm keen to see all of the projects tomorrow.

Student Reporter

What's been your favourite thing about Game Changer?

Miss Vishwanathan

I think that's a good question. My favourite thing is probably, and this probably is going to sound quite niche, but I love looking at people that are thinking about something and then have a light bulb moment.

Student Reporter

Yeah, like people watching?

Miss Vishwanathan

I love people watching.

Student Reporter

And then you see their face just spark up and be like, yeah.

Miss Vishwanathan

100% and that is what I'm seeing a lot of. It's really, really nice to have. The confusion and then turn to Oh my God moment and then trying to get everyone on board. That's been really fun to watch.

Interview two

Student Reporter

Hello, my name is Rishabh and I'm joined today by Miss Burns.

Miss Burns

Hi Rishabh.

Student Reporter

So I want to ask you. If you didn't live in Australia and had to choose a country. Where would you live?

Miss Burns

Oh, I think I would live in New Zealand. I've actually lived there before and I really liked it. It's so clean. I really like it because it's so clean and green. The people are so friendly.

Student Reporter

Okay now I want to ask you, where did your passion for teaching come from?

Miss Burns

When I was in Year 12, I got a little more serious about school and I had some great teachers there, particularly my English teacher, and that's what inspired me.

Student Reporter

Is that why you're teaching English right now?

Miss Burns

That's why I'm teaching English right now. But also, when I was at university, I majored in geography first and then English is kind of a second subject. But then as I got into my career at other schools, they needed English teachers. So sometimes I teach a little bit of geography, but now mostly English.

Student Reporter

And how did you discover the Game Changer Challenge?

Miss Burns

Through Mr Wise, encoded Mr Wise sent out email to the teachers, and he said who'd be interested in doing this? And I read it and I said, well, I'd be interested in doing it. He trained me up. So, it originally wasn't Game Changers, it was the NRMA challenge. Then I got into Game Changer as well because more kids started to do the STEM challenges.

Then when Mr Wise went on holidays this year, he rang the coordinator for the school of the challenges, and that's when I got right into it. Now, yeah, I'm an expert.

Student Reporter

So what have you been doing to support your group?

Miss Burns

We had the meetings Wednesday afternoons where they do most of the work and I just do the snacks. Mainly I provide them with snacks because they need energy to think and just prompt them a little bit. But mostly, yeah, I just be there and they do everything.

Interview three

Student Reporter

We are joined by Miss Livio if you wanted to introduce yourself.

Miss Livio

Good afternoon everybody. What a pleasure it is to be here. Lovely to meet you Matisse and Maddie, what a great job you are doing today.

Student Reporter

Thanks so much. Why exactly did you think you started teaching?

Miss Livio

That is a great question. When I finished my HSC, I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do. My parents and family own a nursery. You know, we have grown plants and those sorts of things and they wanted me to or they encouraged me, should I say, to stay on the land.

I wasn't overly keen on doing that. I've been doing that in my whole life. Although I'm very practical, you sort of usually find me in a flannelette shirt and boots working on the land when I was growing up. When I just finished my HSC I thought, you know what, I'm going to be a teacher. My dad said you're crazy, you've spent 13 years not wanting to go to school and being a scallywag and now you want to go back.

So here I am. I thought I was very blessed to be brought up with parents that are very caring and we've got a great family. I wanted to pass some of those skills on connectivity, enthusiasm, hard work, tackling challenges and all those sorts of things and I thought I reckon I can do this.

I went off to university and I actually have my first appointment out in Broken Hill, which for you guys is like in the middle of nowhere far West NSW. I absolutely love that opportunity. I've never had a bad day at work. Had challenging days but never bad days and I absolutely love what I do.

Student Reporter

Was there someone in particular that inspired you to become a teacher?

Miss Livio

So many, so many. I don't want to take up all the time talking about all the people that inspire me. But probably one person in particular was in my youthful days, which are far beyond me now. There was a fabulous man called Peter Doherty and he was my assistant principal out in Broken Hill.

I was the year 6 teacher in my first year out and he was right next door. He taught me lots of little tips of the trade to keep me in check. He was very inspiring, the way that he could get kids to really listen to him. He had an excellent discipline, but then he also had that banter and a really strong connection with students.

I sort of shadowed him for a couple of years before I went off and pursued further things in different areas. He was certainly someone who has inspired me my whole career. I'm still in touch with him now and he was MC at my wedding. Yeah, we're very good friends. I was very blessed to be exposed to such a great person so early in my career.

Student Reporter

I guess sort of your inspirations probably also link with Game Changer because I'm sure that you're an inspiration to a couple of people here. How did you discover Game Changer and what were your initial thoughts?

Miss Livio

I discovered Game Changer in about I'm not quite sure how far it goes back. But I'm going to throw out about 2018-2019 potentially. I've spent a lot of my career looking at authentic problem solving tasks, challenges and STEM initiatives my whole career.

This came across my desk one day when I was in. I was a primary teacher for those people in the room for 25 years. In that space, I started teaching year 3 and 4 Game Changer first, then merged into year 5 and 6.

I've recently transferred over to the high school sector. My current team is in year 10. I've sort of taught from all the way from year 3 to year 10 at the moment. I believe that Game Changer is not just for our high potential students. It's actually for everyone.

I've just come off the back with my current class of doing a 3 term Game Changer process. My current class which is a mainstream year 7 class, have just written and published a children's book that has gone very wide and been very successful. I think design thinking has a place for everybody.

It certainly changes the way that people can have an impact on their community and beyond. I also think that it's brilliant in teamwork skills. It doesn't matter what career you get when you get older. You have to learn to work as a team and you need to be resilient, overcome challenges and really that's what Game changer is.

Student Reporter

Yeah.

Miss Livio

I think it's a really important process and competition for everybody to be involved in.

Student Reporter

Yeah. With your current team, how did you find supporting them?

Miss Livio

My current team is so motivated, so my goal is just to keep them in check. They're very self motivated because I worked with them last year, so I turn up to school and they're there before me most days and they're in my classroom.

And my job is to get them to appreciate each other's thoughts, perspectives and to try and get them to sometimes narrow down their scope. Which is always a bit challenging because we don't want to narrow it too much. Because it's incredible what happens when you give children scope. They come up with ideas that are far beyond anything that us teachers can think of.

It's very easy to motivate my boys because they want to be here and they are hungry to learn and develop. They all want to be engineers, the whole five of them when they finish. This is the kind of space that helps them to grow and develop those skills.

Student Reporter

Wow. How do you think you have helped them develop their designing skills and thinking?

Miss Livio

I think the best way to help any student with design thinking is to ask questions. We as facilitators are not here to tell them what to do. We are here to guide them and ask those questions, put out possible challenges that they're going to face along the way. It's great to have a good concept but I think we need to think about what is authentic for our area. What is going to have impact. Everybody wants to change the world in some way or another.

I think that by empathising with the people that you've got around you and really deep diving into investigations. I always get my students to do field excursions, to do surveys, ring up, ask a question, get involved with your community, find out what the need is. Then you can start solving a problem.

It's very difficult to solve a problem if you don't actually know what people feel and think about the problem.

Interview four

Student Reporter

Who inspired you to pursue a career in teaching?

Mr Tam

Okay. My ancient history teacher was the one who inspired me to become a teacher. I love the way he understood the content. The way he engaged us and treated us more like adults when we were seniors.

He basically talked to us like he did as if we were university students. He structured all the lessons like they were tutorials. He gave us time to think and he really forced us to answer the questions as opposed to answering the questions for us.

I really enjoyed that mode. I think it's a very old school way of teaching, but it really resonated with me.

Student Reporter

How did you end up being a librarian at our school?

Mr Tam

I became a librarian because an opportunity was offered to me by one of the other teachers who informed me that there was a temporary position available. I thought this was a really rare opportunity, so I thought I'd give it a go.

I gave it a go and enjoyed it because I wasn't locked into a particular position. I wasn't restricted to a particular curriculum and it enabled me to work cross-curricular wise and engage with other teachers, which was super interesting because I got to kind of pick and choose what I enjoyed and tailor things to my skill set. I had a greater chance to experiment with other faculties.

Student Reporter

Okay, thank you.

That's all we have time for today.

Thank you, Mr Tam.

Mr Tam

Awesome. Thank you, Lilian.

Student Reporter

This episode was brought to you by Teach NSW and the STEM T4L team. For more information and to get involved with the Game Changer Challenge. You can read more on their webpage.

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