Though he’ll play more now he has the time, John Howley doesn’t think his golfing handicap of 32 is going to improve much after not budging for years anyway.
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But he’ll give it a crack.
The familiar Goulburn Valley personality retired from teaching at the end of 2024 after giving 50 years to education.
Mr Howley began his teaching journey fresh out of LaTrobe University in 1974 at Ardmona Primary School.
He’d initially started training to teach secondary school students, but was inspired by the admirable work Bernie Trevaskis was doing in primary teaching and decided to switch himself.
“I changed over to primary and never regretted it,” Mr Howley said.
While his whole career has been dedicated to supporting kids to learn, the landscape of each environment in which he’s taught has changed many times.
After nine years at Ardmona, he spent time teaching at Merrigum Primary School and Gowrie St Primary School in Shepparton, before doing consultancy work for the Disadvantaged Schools Program.
Then, he landed the distinguished role of principal for 12 years at Guthrie St Primary School, which he labels “the pinnacle of his career”.
“Being principal is a privilege,” Mr Howley said.
“I did a lot of study and a lot of work to take that on and I think I did very well there, so that would have to be my number one.”
In 2006, after taking a 54/11 package — the practice of resigning from the Commonwealth Public Service before turning age 55 to effectively preserve the Commonwealth Superannuation Scheme benefits — he moved on to work in a welfare role with Berry Street’s Leaps and Bounds program.
“A lot of people took the package in 2006. As a result, I’ve had the best variation of career,” Mr Howley said.
He spent five years working at Berry Street with students who didn’t want to go to school before the organisation established its own school.
The students were involved in alternative curricular activities to what was delivered in mainstream schools, such as mechanics and outdoor activities.
“It was just an amazing building of skills and relationships and I’ve come across some of them later on who have done well,” Mr Howley said.
He moved from Berry Street back into classroom teaching at St Brendan’s Primary School, a Catholic school in Shepparton, where he saw out the final years of his teaching career.
“I didn’t think I’d be there long, but I was there 12 years,” Mr Howley said.
“It was a bit of a change returning to full-time classroom teacher at St Brendan’s, teaching Grade 1 and 2.”
In 2015 he spent another 12 months out of the classroom when he took on the assistant principal’s role at the school, before diving back into teaching Year 3 and 4 kids in 2016.
Despite the varied roles in education, Mr Howley said he was passionate about classroom teaching right to the very end.
“You get in, you build a relationship with the kids, I still love that,” he said.
“A couple of years ago I looked at going part-time, but I thought no, once you’re there, the children with you, when you build that connection with kids, it’s amazing to see how they can gel and enjoy.
“In schools, there’s a lot of people around, that’s the one thing I’ll note, the relationships and the friendships, you know, the fun you have as part of a group.
“At St Brendan’s we had team teaching and team planning, which was magnificent.”
Despite doing a lot of work in literacy, including his masters, Mr Howley said if you asked a St Brendan’s student what they’d say about him, it would probably be, “He made sure we put the right thing in the right bin”.
“From an environmental point of view, it’s a great thing,” he said.
“You’ve got three or four hundred students going home with the same message to other people and you spread the word.
“That’s one thing I was pretty passionate about, making sure that our place looked neat and having systems in place to make sure that happened.”
Since 2015, he’s been spending a day a week focusing on occupational health and safety and maintenance at the school, which he said gave him another outlet to contribute positively.
“I believe the school’s looking really good, we have some really good subcontractors, we’re getting things done,” he said.
While Mr Howley said technology had changed drastically over his 50 years — think chalkboards and a single classroom Commodore 64 being replaced by interactive whiteboards and a laptop for every student — the goal outcomes of educating had remained largely the same.
He also believes there are many similarities between private and public schools after spending decades working in both Department of Education schools and the Catholic school system.
“They’re both making sure kids get a good chance, making sure those kids that are at more disadvantage are given some encouragement to get along, making sure you’re involved with the families — that’s a big one as well,” he said.
“Staff-wise, the same sort of thing, I didn’t see a big difference between the two.
“In terms of our values from a staff point of view and a student point of view, I think we’re very similar.
“You’re after giving kids a chance to grow and take on challenges and support them along the way.”
The chalkboards might be long gone and pedantic teachers might miss their chance to impress their superiors with their perfectly handwritten alphabets along the top, but new opportunities are always coming.
Mr Howley briefly laments that he won’t get a chance to deliver the highly anticipated Magnify Sandhurst integrated learning and teaching program being rolled out next year, but has plenty more exciting activities to look forward to in his retirement.
He and his wife, Denise, who retired from teaching two years ago, will share their time between the Goulburn Valley, where their daughter Emila, her husband and their three children are, and Kyneton, where they have five more grandchildren.
Along with coffee dates, red wine and some gardening, the pair is not looking to sit still.
“I’ve had great health, in terms of days off, I’ve hardly had any. I think in 12 years at St Brendan’s I didn’t have any, I don’t think,” Mr Howley said.
“When you’ve got your health, it’s a privilege, because not everyone’s got that.”
With a Group 1 horse in his horse trainer son Liam’s stables, Mr Howley will stay fit by mucking out stalls, taking out rubbish and carting horses here and there in trucks and floats.
And, of course, traipsing many kilometres on foot around that golf course trying to lower his handicap.
Senior journalist