Jenni Cook | Deputy Principal
Mount Barker High School

Jenni has been a teacher with the South Australian Department for Education for over thirty years, spending most of her career working in disadvantaged schools. She is committed to providing access to education for all and has been implemental in establishing successful programs for disenfranchised young people. Her current role is Deputy Principal at Mount Barker High School, an inner regional co-educational school in the Adelaide Hills. The main foci of her role are staff training and development, pedagogy, student services, wellbeing, inclusion, and student voice. Previously Assistant Principal for Positive Education and Teaching Practice at the school, she has led the implementation of Positive Education at Mount Barker High School for over ten years, runs regular professional learning for other schools interested in embedding positive education into their practice and has regularly presented at conferences on positive education topics since 2014. Mount Barker High School first became involved in Positive Education in 2012 and 2013 when they worked with Professor Martin Seligman as the Department for Education’s focus school with the Adelaide Thinker in Residence Program. In 2015 the school became the Department’s Specialist School for Positive Education Teacher Training. For Mount Barker High School Positive Education is not a program that teachers deliver, it is embedded throughout every aspect of school life, becoming part of the school’s DNA. All staff undertake training and development in positive education, it is taught both explicitly and implicitly, and school policies and procedures are reviewed and developed through a positive education lens. Jenni has a Degree in Art Education, a Graduate Certificate in Inclusive Education and is currently working towards a Doctorate with a focus on teachers’ experiences when positive education is introduced into a school.