Presenter profiles

Meet the PETAA experts who can deliver high-quality, evidence-informed professional learning, online or face-to-face, tailored to your school or cluster's context.

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Jennifer Asha (NSW)

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Jennifer Asha is a literacy educator with a passion for helping students become literate in technologically and visually rich environments. She has been involved in several publications and research projects in these areas. She hopes her work will encourage teachers and students to have a deep love of literature. She is the author of PETAA Paper #232 Making sense of the models: Teaching reading knowledge, skills and dispositions; PETAA Reference text The potential of the visual: Teaching literacy with multimodal texts, and an a variety of other publications, chapters, and papers. She has extensive experience facilitating professional learning for teachers.

Areas of expertise:

  • Explicit Reading instruction across the primary school 
  • Explicit instruction of writing
  • Using literature as mentor texts to teach writing 
  • Exploring poetry
  • Teaching grammar for curriculum literacy 
  • Multimodal and Critical literacy 
  • Teaching with and about persuasive texts 
  • Dialogic pedagogy for Oracy 
  • Talking to Write.

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Lorraine (Lorri) Beveridge (NSW)

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Dr Lorraine (Lorri) Beveridge was a primary teacher/school leader for more than 30 years. She occupied a range of executive roles, including principal, assistant principal and curriculum advisor in NSW government schools. Her PhD research was on the impact and sustainability of collaborative professional learning. She currently works as a casual lecturer and presents professional learning for teachers.  

Lorri is the author of The Early Reading and Music Partnership (PETAA, 2023), which guides teachers through language and literacy development using the Big 6 pillars of effective reading instruction using music, rhythm, rhyme, and song. She was also co-editor of EPAA Award-winning text The Alphabetic Principle: surveying the landscape (PETAA, 2019) and has published more than 20 academic and practitioner papers for teachers on teaching English in primary schools.

She is also the author of PETAA Paper #231 (2024), Playful Punctuation; PETAA Paper #223 (2021), We're going on a...Quest!; and co-author of PETAA Paper #215 (2019), Let’s write a unit.

Areas of Expertise:

  • English curriculum implementation
  • Early reading and music integration that improves reading acquisition
  • Writing engaging integrated English units incorporating English concepts, based on quality texts.

Teachers say: 

"Our Leaders of Pedagogy have been truly inspired by the online PETAA sessions led by Dr. Lorraine Beveridge on 'Let's Write a Unit - Textual Concepts.' These sessions have proven to be a driving force in our ongoing commitment to curriculum reform...Thanks to the knowledge and strategies gained through these sessions, we are confident our educators are better prepared to nurture a deeper love for literature and enhance the skills of our students. Dr. Lorraine Beveridge's contributions have been instrumental in driving this transformation, and we look forward to the continued success of our curriculum reform initiatives." - Subject Matter Expert: Literacy K-6 and Data, NSW.

“Thank you so much Lorri for a fabulous day, for sharing your passion and knowledge with us! I felt like you created a safe and supportive space for us to be creative and share ideas!”  - P-6 Creative Arts teacher, NSW.

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Rachael Hill (QLD)

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Rachael is PETAA's Head of Professional Learning. Most recently, she was in the role of Senior Advisor – Learning and Pedagogy (Literacy), working with a large number of primary schools across the wider Brisbane and outer Brisbane area for Brisbane Catholic Education. Her role supported the building of effective literacy practices and school improvement, with both leadership teams and classroom teachers. Rachael has over 35 years experience teaching in primary schools and as a school curriculum leader with a focus on Literacy. With a passion for literature, Rachael was a Teacher Librarian for over 20 years in a number of P-6 primary schools. Rachael has previously served as a PETAA Board Director.

Areas of expertise
• Scoping and leading whole school literacy improvement: identifying and prioritising a focus area with leadership to develop an implementation plan, and optional ongoing coaching to ensure strategic direction.
• Selecting engaging and quality literature across English and other Curriculum Areas
• Explicit teaching with mentor texts using the reading writing connection
• Planning teaching cycles integrating the modes of English
• Teaching writing
• Teaching reading, including practices for Years 3-6 such as Literature Circles

Linda Gawne is a primary language and literacy lecturer in the Faculty of Education at the University of Melbourne (UoM). Her research interests include early literacy pedagogies, with a special interest in reading, and the influences on teachers as they make decisions about teaching literacy. Linda was one of the original contributors to the Victorian Literacy Teaching Toolkit and is currently part of a team developing phonics resources to enhance and update the website. Linda has worked extensively in Victorian government primary schools as a classroom teacher, EAL specialist, Literacy Coach and Community of Practice Assistant Principal across network schools. Currently, Linda delivers professional learning for primary teachers via a Custom Education partnership with the UoM and the Department for Education, South Australia. Linda is currently a PETAA Board Director.

Areas of expertise
• Building a whole school approach to the teaching of literacy
• Using the teaching and learning cycle (Derewianka & Jones, 2022) to connect talk, reading, writing and teaching grammar in context
• Years 3 to 6 reading instructional practices: Literature Circles, Reciprocal Teaching, Close Reading, Reading Conferences, Socratic Circles
• Selecting and using quality mentor texts to teach English, literacy and across the curriculum

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Michael Murray (NSW)

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Michael Murray worked for the NSW Department of Education for 35 years, including 11 years as an English Coordinator in a K-12 school and 8 years as Chief Education Officer, English and Literacy K-12. He has contributed to the development of NSW English syllabuses, including the English K-10 Syllabus incorporating Australian Curriculum content, and led the development of professional learning and resources by the NSW Department of Education to support the implementation of these syllabuses. Michael currently works freelance as an independent consultant; in particular, he has run two series of highly acclaimed workshops for PETAA on implementation of the NSW English syllabus for K-6 teachers.

Areas of expertise:

  • Implementation of NSW English K-10 Syllabus in primary classrooms
  • Development and evaluation of quality syallbus-based English units of work
  • Using quality literature as a resource for the teaching of English K-6.

Teachers say: 

"Michael was amazing and very informative. Great presenter and gave great insights." - Year 2 Teacher, NSW

"Highly skilled presenter with a wealth of knowledge." - Support Unit, NSW

“Thank you for an inspiring and informative day. I can't wait to share what I have learned with my peers back at school.” – K-2 teacher, NSW

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Marian Nicolazzo (VIC)

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Marian is a highly experienced language and literacy educator. She has been a primary classroom teacher, school leader, lecturer, consultant and literacy coach. Most recently Marian was employed by the University of Melbourne to deliver professional learning to teachers in South Australia and to design English curriculum resources for Victorian government primary schools.  She is particularly interested in functional grammar as a tool for teaching and assessing and how language is used in particular ways to build meaning across different types of texts. Marian has contributed to publications for both pre-service and practising teachers focusing on the teaching of writing. 

Areas of expertise:
• Spelling and word knowledge
• Functional grammar and teaching grammar in context
• Teaching writing 
• The teaching and learning cycle

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Joanne Rossbridge (NSW)

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Joanne is an independent literacy consultant working in both primary and secondary schools and classrooms with teachers across NSW. Much of her experience has involved working with students from non-English speaking backgrounds, and in a range of universities in both under graduate and post graduate teacher training. Joanne is particularly interested in student and teacher talk and how talk about language can assist the development of language and literacy skills.

See details of her PETAA publication (with Kathy Rushton) Put It in Writing: Text, Context, language. See also PETAA Paper 196: The critical conversation about text: Joint construction (also with Kathy Rushton).

Areas of expertise:

  • Functional grammar and teaching grammar in context
  • The teaching of writing, particularly in relation to text purpose (i.e. imaginative, informative, persuasive)
  • Writing instructional practice (i.e. modelled writing, shared writing, joint construction, independent writing)
  • The teaching and learning cycle

Teachers say:

"The professional learning session was outstanding and highly practical. Teachers were given valuable time for planning, which was incredibly beneficial, especially with Jo present as the expert knowledgeable other to support us in every way. She expertly answered all our questions about writing and clarified what best practice looks like. The workshop made our next steps very clear, giving us a strong direction moving forward. We look forward to working with Jo again.."  - Principal, NSW

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Stephanie Salazar (NSW)

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Stephanie is the Founder and Educational Leadership Coach from Sanctuaries of Learning, which aims to bring back the joy of learning in schools. She collaborates with leaders to reflect on ways we can better support our teachers and co-creates supportive frameworks to meet the unique teachers of teachers and students within schools. She is also a facilitator and Critical Friend of four Instructional Rounds networks, enhancing whole-school pedagogical practices. She is an award-winning classroom teacher, and former Assistant Principal and Instructional Coach at a public primary school in NSW, Australia.

Areas of expertise:

  • Whole school coherence in literacy models
  • Differentiation in explicit teaching practices
  • Empowering leaders through empowering teachers
  • Coaching option: Modelling literacy teaching strategies with leaderships

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Amanda Sutera (VIC)

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Amanda in an Instructional Literacy Coach who is passionate about leadership, literacy and learning. She established Hands on Heads Consulting to support and inspire educators in their literacy practice. During her 14 plus years in the teaching profession, she was a Primary Classroom Teacher, experiencing both lower and upper primary year levels. As her career progressed, she held positions of leadership, including Literacy Coach, International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme Coordinator and Head of Curriculum (Junior School).

Areas of expertise:

  • Explicit vocabulary instruction (Years 3-6)
  • Using quality literature to teach reading, writing, speaking and listening (Years 3-6)
  • Fostering collaboration and student agency within a structured approach to literacy (years 3-6)