Isabella goes out on a high
Schools
When her name was called out as the winner of the CESA Leadership Excellence award at the Hilton hotel in May, Isabelle Roberts was thinking along very different lines to everyone else in the room.
“My biggest fear was falling off the stage,” she said.
“There were two lots of stairs and for the first 30 seconds the room was spinning. I thought, if I can just do this, I’ll be ok. My son volunteered to help me but I didn’t want to look like a little old lady.”
Isabelle is anything but. A force of nature, she is an achiever of the highest order – a musician, liturgist, teacher and pragmatist. The nerves, it transpired, were nothing to do with speaking before 300 guests at the Catholic Education South Australia awards.
“I have suffered from vertigo but am getting better,” she told The Southern Cross.
Isabella with her children at the CESA Awards night.
Isabelle was a popular winner on the night, cheers ringing out from her table, but Isabelle insists they came from her four children.
After being rewarded for her 46 years teaching within Catholic education, Isabelle last month handed in her notice as Religious Education coordinator and liturgist at Loreto College in Marryatville where she has taught for the past 15 years.
“I only decided to leave the Thursday after the award, to go out on a high. I am not retiring, I am resigning,” she said emphatically.
“I want to do other things.”
Her husband, Colin, whom she met when they played in the same music band, passed away four years ago at the age of 60 and when Isabelle started suffering from vertigo, she decided spending time with children and grandchildren was paramount.
And there is her 92-year-old mother who she takes out to dinner and Mass every Saturday and to Mass every Sunday.
“Working long hours seven days a week meant family had to move to the side and I wasn’t able to keep up with both home and work,” she said.
Such perspective generally comes from someone who has led a full life and Isabelle certainly fits the mould.
Isabelle kicked off her career, while still studying, as an organist at Clearview parish which morphed into teaching children and youth choirs and coordinating liturgical celebrations. An unexpected telephone call from a former principal took her to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart College in Alice Springs.
‘Alice’ in 1979 was an eye opener, she said.
“There were no shops. There was a BP petrol station that would get (food) deliveries, the rest of the time you had to make do from the corner shop. You might have no fruit for three weeks if you missed out or they couldn’t get it.
“I lived in a boarding house opposite the school. We would hire a 4WD or a Fokker plane at the weekend and go out. I climbed Ayers Rock before it had handrails even.”
There were 700 students at the school and Isabelle would put uniforms on some of the Indigenous students and put glaucoma drops in their eyes, teach them and put them on the bus home at the end of the day.
She was 21.
“I loved it. It was the year I grew up,” she said.
“I was employed to be a Year 7 teacher. The maths teacher said he’d swap with me if I did his music and shortly after I became a music and drama teacher. That was my first time teaching.”
There was a sizeable American defence cohort based at nearby Pine Gap.
“I was asked to teach (some of them) piano and was asked if I could I play the trumpet? I said no, but I can play French horn so taught them that,” she recalled.
The guitar, an instrumental then unmastered, proved no more daunting as she quickly learned three chords when asked and more teaching ensued.
There were historical learnings also when she was there.
“It was the time of Azaria Chamberlain, they (locals) had been chasing dingoes out a few weeks before. They didn’t have a courthouse in Alice Springs (for the trial) so one was built.
“You couldn’t go into the pub if you didn’t have socks and shoes (to keep the typically barefooted Aboriginals out) and they would be served out the back with watered down alcohol.”
A move to St Brigid’s School in Kilburn saw her develop a pioneering instrumental music program for newly arrived and ESL (English as a second language) students, using music as a bridge for connection and belonging.
Music is the overarching theme to Isabelle’s career and indeed life.
“My kids say that I have three types of music on my Spotify playlist: contemporary Christian music, inspirational music and songs to reflect by,” she said.
She will run a workshop at the Australian Pastoral Musicians Network and National Liturgical Council (APMN/NLC) national conference, Pilgrims of Hope: Transformed through Sacrament & Song, in Adelaide in October.
“I am also on the committee organising the Mass and prayer services for the three days.”
At Loreto there is liturgy every single Monday morning, attended by all junior school staff, students and their families. Students lead the prayers and singing and learn any accompanying actions.
Empowering children more widely, is part of the remit too with a recent fundraiser at Loreto generating $10,000 for Project Compassion while a ‘keep warm’ fundraiser saw four carloads of blankets, jackets, beanies and gloves donated to charity.
“We teach kids that they have a voice, that you need to change the world with your voice and actions,” said Isabelle. “You need to make a difference.”
And further celebrations are in order for the Roberts family with the news that Isabelle’s daughter, Melissa Oudshoorn, was invested earlier this month at Government House as a Commander in the Knights of St John.
Melissa, 40, joined St John Ambulance SA as a cadet when she was a 11-year-old pupil at
St Brigid’s school in Kilburn and is now the Event Volunteer Operations Manager.
“I am very proud of my children,” said Isabelle.
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