It wasn’t quite Freaky Friday, but on Thursday (7 August) Keiraville Public School principal Toula Kotamanidis and student Drew Lisle swapped places for the day. Photo: NSW Department of Education.
Keiraville Public hosted an unusual student last week.
She was about the same size as her peers, dressed proudly in school uniform with her hair in neat, ribboned pigtails.
If you looked a little closer, however, you might have noticed some small differences between Toula Kotamanidis and her classmates.
Technically, Toula finished her primary school education quite some time ago.
Nevertheless, every year for the past seven years she has donned a school uniform and spent the day as one of her students.
“I blend in until they look too closely at the creases on my face,” Toula laughed.
“I love it; give me a dress-up and I’m like a pig in mud.”
The swap doesn’t go one way – each year one Keiraville student steps up to take Toula’s place as principal.
This year it was Drew Lisle.
Drew was keen to step into the principal’s shoes – and office – to prove to herself just what she was capable of.
She said the experience wasn’t exactly what she imagined it would be, but she did learn some timeless lessons about the adult workplace.
“I thought I had to sit in the office all day, but I went to classrooms, talked to kids and went on playground duty,” she said.
“Talking in front of the whole school was the most challenging part.
“The coffee run was probably the most fun.”
Toula, meanwhile, had a tough time convincing the kindy kids of her bona fides.
The older children, however, rolled with the annual Public Education Week tradition and threw Toula her toughest challenge – a game of handball.
“The Kindergarten kids were my highlight, their wonderment,” Toula said.
“The older kids who are used to my craziness just treated me like another one of the kids.
“Keiraville kids are very inviting of anyone new and they invited me to play handball at lunch.
“There’s not a sporting bone in my body; I was pretty terrible, but they cheered as I got better.”
Toula said there was a serious side to the role swap, too.
It gives kids an opportunity to stretch themselves and see what they’re capable of.
It also provides a unique insight into how things look from a student-eye view.
“We had a conversation about kids having off task conversations,” Toula said.
“But I had the experience of listening intently to instructions, and when I got back to the table I wasn’t sure what to do.
“I had to talk to ask the person next to me, so for us as teachers it became a conversation about are we being explicit with our kids about what we want to happen in the classroom?”
As for Drew, she applied for the principal-for-a-day role in the hope it would boost her self-confidence.
She said the experience showed her just how much she was capable of.
“I wanted to prove I can do things when I put my mind to it,” she said.
“It’s made me believe in myself and that I’m capable of doing more.”
Toula greed.
“Drew has proved something to herself, and she’s made her mother and her principal very proud,” she said.
