Previous Blackwell fellowships
2010 fellowship
An early childhood educator with extensive experience in refugee education is the Margaret M Blackwell Travel Fellow for 2010.
Robyn Gerrity is the director of the Carol White Family Centre which provides early childhood education and other services to 70 children from refugee families every day.
She will use the grant to visit London-based early childhood education centres which provide a range of support services for refugee and migrant families. She also plans to visit Pen Green Centre which also runs services for children and families and provides training for early childhood teachers.
The fellowship is an annual award aimed at enabling people working in the early childhood field to study overseas.
Media release: Early Childhood Travel fellowship recipient announced [ 50KB PDF ]
29 November 2010
2009 fellowship
The 2009 Margaret May Blackwell travel fellowship went to Deborah Wansbrough, of Wellington.
She will use the grant to study leadership development programmes for early childhood education teachers overseas. These include at Pen Green Centre in the United Kingdom, which runs a national qualification for early childhood leaders and the McCormick Centre for Early Childhood Leadership at the National-Louis University, Illinois, United States. She also hopes to investigate the work of Kaye Colmer at the Lady Gowrie Centre in Adelaide.
Deborah has researched the availability and effectiveness of leadership programmes in New Zealand and is keen to explore what others are doing. Currently at the New Zealand Teachers Council, she has a background in professional development and teacher education for early childhood teachers. She has also worked as a teacher and has had a long association with playcentre.
Media release: Margaret May Blackwell travel fellowship announced [ 100KB PDF ]
1 March 2010
2008 Fellows
The 2008 Margaret M Blackwell Travel Fellowship for Early Childhood Educators was awarded jointly to Kathryn Hart and Annette Sheehy. Kathryn and Annette are both leaders with the Tauranga Regional Free Kindergarten Association and joined a study tour of the Forest Kindergartens in Denmark, Switzerland and Germany. They looked at the authentic natural learning experiences that the children within these services are immersed in on a daily basis in comparison to New Zealand early childhood models that are provided on a local and national level.