All About Me

Kia Ora! Ko Emma Watts tōrku ingoa. I’m the DATS Leader (Design, Arts, Technology & Science) at Shotover Primary School.

I have been a qualified teacher for over 15 years and enjoy teaching children of all ages. I studied in London and was awarded a BA in Art for the Community with Qualified Teacher Status. After my studies I lived and worked in the heart of the East End as a classroom teacher and a Lead Literacy Teacher. In New Zealand I have led elearning at a school in Auckland, and at two schools in the Nelson & Tasman Districts.  I have experience as a team leader, Media Tech & Robotics Tech Teacher for Year 7/8, and as a BYOD and Hapara/Google Apps Leader. In 2013 I was awarded an eFellowship with CORE Education which acknowledged my leadership in the use of elearning to enhance and extend learning within and beyond the classroom.

In my spare time I can be found outdoors tramping and exploring, or indoors reading, tinkering and creating. I snowboard and sea kayak - I love exploring our beautiful region!

I believe that learning is our core business and that everyone is capable of learning. I am passionate about our community developing growth mindsets to cultivate curiosity, inspire passion, and foster reflective thinking. DATS is a fantastic way to grow future innovators and inventors. Through DATS we can foster children's creative problem solving and teamwork skills. It provides opportunities to learn by thinking with our hands, working with readily available materials, getting our hands ‘dirty’, failing and bouncing back from that failure - a great opportunity for our children to practice climbing into and out of the ‘Learning Pit’, to foster ‘grit’ and develop a growth mindset within real-life and fun contexts. Embracing DATS within our school fosters future focused learning.

I am also passionate about developing our children’s confidence and ability to talk about their learning, so that they can identify where they are at, where they are going and how they will get there, thus enabling our children to see themselves as the key drivers of their own learning. I find it incredibly rewarding to work alongside all akonga and to be part of their journey growing into confident, connected and actively involved life-long learners.