As Head of Curriculum at Wilderness School, Brad Snell (BEd(UP/LS) ’08) loves going to work each day. He counts himself lucky that he has found a career that brings him joy and excitement – and enables him to shape young lives.
Since graduating from Flinders University with a Bachelor of Education in 2008 Brad has been involved with education at both a school level and at a systems level, with the SACE Board of South Australia and the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority.
“I have been able to influence the Physical Education curriculum across Australia, which has been really rewarding,” says Brad.
“Teaching is such as a privilege and responsibility that we should not take lightly. I want to have as much positive impact on young people as I can.”
Brad credits his time at Flinders as providing him with very strong philosophical and theoretical core knowledge of education, in addition to being able to learn from world-class professionals.
“The PE component of my degree provided me with an opportunity to learn from world-class professionals such as the ‘great’ Russell Brown and learning game-sense approaches to PE with Shane Pill.”
“A number of my cohort had success very early in their careers and this can be put down to the great experiences we had at Flinders,” says Brad. “This being said, there is also no experience like ‘on the job’, and all graduates need to have a really open approach and a willingness to do anything, at the start of their careers.”
Looking to the future Brad says he “hopes to be able to grow each year and influence education widely. I’m keen to continue to grow as a leader and I’m excited by what the future might hold”.
With advice to young people, Brad says, “When we’re young, most of us don’t really know what we want to do. But if you follow your heart you can’t go wrong.”