The Teacher Feature is meant to highlight two of our current teachers. We have an amazingly diverse staff and we encourage you to get to know them!

Caitlin Arnold

1. What class or classes do you teach?

I currently teach Year 10 History, Year 9, 10 and 11 English, and Challenge…The Next Step to Year 9 girls.

2. How long have you been working at Northpine?

This is my sixth year teaching at Northpine.

3. How did you first discover you wanted to be a teacher?

My parents are both teachers, so of course I tried to get out of being a teacher for a long time!  I studied journalism my first year of college, but after working as a counselor for three years at Big Lake Youth Camp in Oregon, I realized what I really loved was working with teens.  My second year I changed colleges and began studying Social Studies Education, which was a much better fit!

4. Where are you originally from?

I grew up in Vancouver, Washington near Portland, Oregon in the United States.  I moved to Australia in 2011 and still miss the cold weather, snowboarding and Portland coffee!

5. What might we be surprised to know about you?

My students know this about me…I hate fans.  There’s not supposed to be wind inside!

6. If you could time travel, where and when would you go?

I would visit New York during the 1920s—women’s suffrage and empowerment, amazing fashion, opulence and jazz—sounds like such a good time!

7. What’s one great book or movie you’ve read or seen recently?

I finished Jasper Jones at the end of last year and absolutely loved it; I’m so excited for the film to come out!

8. Which person, directly or indirectly, has inspired you the most?

My mom, Peggy McNabb, inspires me the most.  She is a high school teacher who works with parenting and pregnant teens and has inspired many students to finish school and be good parents.  Not only does she share her faith through her work in a secular space, but she has also been recognized as Washington State teacher of the year (twice!) and is Nationally Board Certified.  She guided me to be the teacher and woman I am today; to be an authentic, strong and genuine Christian woman.

9. What is the most beautiful place you have ever been?

My favourite place, and I believe the most beautiful, is Mt. Hood near Portland, Oregon.  I’ve spent more days than I can count there, yet every time I go back I am awestruck at how beautiful the mountain and the Oregon landscape is.

10. What is the best advice that you can give to your students?

Don’t apologize for who you are; God made you unique and for a purpose.

Raelene Abrahams

1. What class or classes do you teach?

Prep A

2. How long have you been working at Northpine?

30 years

3. How did you first discover you wanted to be a teacher?

I loved working with the children at church

4. Where are you originally from?

South Australia

5. What might we be surprised to know about you?

I’ve taught Prep at Northpine for 20 years (even before the government introduced Prep into primary schools)

6. If you could time travel, where and when would you go?

Would love to go back to my childhood days in the Mid-north of South Australia – very carefree and fun days as a child.

7. What’s one great book or movie you’ve read or seen recently?

“Beautiful Failures” is a book about how the quest for success is harming our kids and how the Finnish Government has got it right. It details what makes their schools so successful.

8. Which person, directly or indirectly, has inspired you the most?

No one person, but many books have inspired me over the years. Books like the Ben Carson Story, books by Robert Schuller, Charles Swindoll, Robert Fulghum and also books about nutrition and well being.

9. What is the most beautiful place you have ever been?

Norfolk Island

10. What is the best advice that you can give to your students?

To always “think positively and make the best of any situation.”