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Advocating for your kids in Schools.
Lynda Knight-de Blois is an experienced educator who is the principal of Glenview School in Cannons Creek, Porirua. She has dedicated 30 years to education, working in various schools in Wellington, Auckland, and England. She will share with you how she has gone about implementing changes at her school and how important it is for all schools to understand trauma and put into place tools and practices that can help children affected by developmental trauma.
Lynda’s commitment to innovative approaches and student well-being has significantly impacted her school community. Lynda recognized the need for a different approach to address challenging behaviours among students at Glenview School, and in 2018 she visited schools in London, Finland, and Estonia to research trauma-informed models. She brought these learnings from overseas back to her school and has since focused on professional learning and development (PLD) related to trauma-informed practices.
Lynda’s commitment extends beyond her school. She has called on the Ministry of Education to ensure that all teachers receive proper training to understand trauma in children. She recognizes that factors like neurodiversity, stressful home lives, poverty, homelessness, and colonization play a role in students’ well-being and behaviour.
She has been awarded a 2024 Winston Churchill Memorial Fund fellowship and a principal sabbatical. In April 2024 she travelled to the UK to research effective strategies and approaches which support, re-engage and regulate secondary school students affected by stress, trauma or sensory processing complexities.