Gerrit Jones-Rooy´s visit

Last week, we were delighted to welcome Gerrit Jones-Rooy to our Junior School. Gerrit has worked as a Senior Director of Academics at Columbia University and is a published author and staff developer there.

During his time with us, Gerrit worked closely with our teachers on the effective use of language in the classroom, with a focus on:

• Building strong academic and inquiry-based language.
• Supporting all teachers as “teachers of language” across subject areas.
• Helping students extend and up-level their vocabulary.

In addition to leading professional learning sessions with staff, Gerrit also spent time in classrooms, supporting teachers with planning and modelling strategies directly with students. His work has helped strengthen our approaches to inquiry, language development, and literacy instruction, ensuring that every child has rich opportunities to grow as a confident communicator and learner.

We are grateful for the expertise Gerrit brought to our Community and look forward to seeing the impact of this work continue to unfold in the classroom.