Janet Nolan’s Story
Janet Nolan has been a School Services Educator for more than 16 years. She started with Interrelate
in the mid-nineties and after a short break, has been back working since 2003. In her time, Janet has
visited hundreds of schools and educated thousands of children.
What do you enjoy most about your role?
Firstly working with the kids! They are fantastic, engaging, excited, fun, curious and they make me
laugh. It’s is huge joy. People ask me if it gets boring doing the same thing for so many years but
every day i s different and every classroom is different.
Secondly, the team we have in School Services is sensational. We’re cohesive, supportive and get on
incredibly well. We’re like a bunch of sisters, most of the time we get on so well that it makes it a really
wonderful place to work.
Lastly, I think one of the things that all of us feel is what a privilege it is to be a positive influence for
children at such as important and impressionable time in their lives. I feel that we are really helping
to shape these young people and that is a huge responsibly but also a fabulous privilege.
How has the program changed in 16 years?
Well a penis is still a penis! What I mean is the actual content, the basic information has not changed
that much but the way we present the information has changed hugely. When I first started we had
over-head projectors and we had to colour the slides in ourselves. So the technological advances
of PowerPoint have made a huge difference. Although, while all these advances are great, it is
also important to keep things simple as our audience are children and we don’t want to be too
confronting with what we show them.
One of the biggest changes I have noticed over the years is that children’s awareness today is
phenomenal but their knowledge is limited. Children are exposed to so much information on
television and on the internet that is way beyond their level of understanding. It’s more important
than ever for us to bring them back to basics and give them the knowledge and an accurate frame
of reference to put what they may be exposed to into context. It helps them to make sense of their
world and the wider world.
What do you see as the greatest benefit of our programs?
The beauty of our programs is that whilst they are structured so that everyone delivers the same
content, we do have the flexibility to add our own personal touches and to adapt things depending
on the audience’s level of interest or engagement.
62