Meet the Team
Nick Burnett
As Managing Director of Team Teach Australia & New Zealand and International Director of Coaching for Team Teach, Nick has over 30 years of experience in mainstream and special schools as a teacher, senior leader, and school principal, in both day and residential settings. Nick is an author, accredited Restorative Practice facilitator, and leadership coach.
It was while Nick was headteacher of a successful state special school in the UK, that he trained to be a Team Teach Intermediate Trainer. The school was praised in an Ofsted inspection for their implementation and use of Team Teach training, and this positive approach to behaviour had a significant impact on the high rating they achieved. Nick then qualified as an Advanced Trainer, running training in a wide range of settings across the UK and, after moving to Australia, in Asia-Pacific countries.
Nick was the first special school leader to gain a Research Associateship from the National College of School Leadership, which involved researching leadership in Special Schools in England and Australia. This has led to the publication of a book, ‘Leadership and Special Education Needs’, which was highly commended by the Times Educational Supplement and National Association of Special Education Needs (nasen) Annual Book Awards. He has also written many publications about reducing risk and restraint, leadership, and positive approaches to behaviour support.
Nick now supports and develops Team Teach trainers to equip them with the attitudes, skills, and knowledge for successful coaching. He advocates a whole-setting holistic approach to behaviour and continues to work with teams across a wide range of education and care settings.
Karen Gamblin
As Regional Account Manager for Team Teach Australia & New Zealand. Karen has 30 years’ experience in teaching, recruitment, training and consultation in the UK, South Africa and Australia. Originally Early Childhood trained, Karen has worked throughout the Primary Sector in all 3 countries and has also worked as an International Teacher Recruitment Manager, vetting and interviewing teachers across Australia, New Zealand, Asia, South Africa and Canada for suitable vacancies in England, Scotland and Wales. This included engaging with teacher graduates at universities across Australia, running workshops on Writing Resumes and Developing Interview Skills, providing graduates with the vital tools they needed to apply for teaching positions in Australia and aboard.
Karen has always been passionate about developing class environments where the needs of all students are catered for and students feel welcome, safe and respected.
Working at Team Teach has allowed her to continue this journey adopting and implementing the Team Teach philosophy to develop and support positive behaviours with transformative training.
She now helps schools and care settings across Australia find suitable training solutions that will them develop a shared culture, understanding and vocabulary around behaviour and hence produce a consistent approach towards behaviour.
Sean Matthews
As Director Business Development for Team Teach Australia & New Zealand. Sean has extensive experience in Aged, Disability and Healthcare sectors.
Sean has an extensive background in sales and business development working across medium to large global businesses and is passionate in making a difference in the Aged, Disability and Healthcare sectors through his understanding the issues around challenged behaviours and supporting organisations with Team Teach Training in providing positive behaviour outcomes and help reduce risk and restraint whilst keeping safe all staff and consumers in Aged care , participants in a Disability setting and patients in Healthcare.
Sean now works with the Team Teach Australia & New Zealand team where he is focussed on Aged, Disability and Healthcare across Australia and New Zealand find suitable training solutions that will allow them to develop a shared culture, understanding and vocabulary around behaviour and hence produce a consistent approach towards positive behaviour outcomes.
Working at Team Teach has allowed Sean to continue this journey of wholistic education in aiding settings to adopt and implementing the Team Teach philosophy to develop and support positive behaviours and learning outcomes by developing skills in forming relationships with each individual consumer, participant and patient and understanding what it is that they need and what they can do to assist a positive outcome each day reducing the need for restraint and improving individual wellbeing every day.
Cale Begley
Cale is a Principal Trainer working predominantly across Western Australia. He is an experienced educator with a passion for supporting genuine positive engagement. Cale worked in education for 15 years as a teacher, chaplain and school principal working with students with a range of complex needs and challenging behaviours. Alongside his Team Teach role he also provides training, coaching and resources to support people with complex needs and runs mainstream high school programs for disengaged youth. Cale has been a Team Teach trainer since 2008. He has delivered training Australia wide across the education and disability sectors.
Cale worked as the school principal of a school catering for students aged 4-18 with severe and complex disabilities for 6 years. During this time, he led a change management process which introduced whole school approaches to positive engagement and communication. The improved levels of engagement led to dramatic reductions in challenging behaviour and improved access to learning experiences and improved outcomes. It also led to improvements in school culture and reputation and saw enrolments increase by 80%. The school received recognition for their work among education, PBS and AAC communities. It was awarded the International Society of Alternative and Augmentative Communication School of the Year. Cale has presented his work at national and international conferences.
Denise Agnew
As Operations Co-ordinator for Team Teach Australia & New Zealand.
Denise has a varied background in administration supporting executives and their teams.
Jonathan Cobb
Jonathan is our key consultant and trainer based in Wellington in New Zealand. He qualified as a teacher 32 years ago and has a passion for helping people over the barriers that hinder them from achieving their full potential. He was Principal of Te Ara School for 15 years working with ‘at risk’ young people in the Wellington region. Regularly highlighted for best practice in ERO reports into Activity Centres.
He is currently Chair of the Wellington Activity Centre Charitable Trust, co-founder of Activity Centres’ National Body being a Member of National Committee for over 10 years and Chair for over 5.
He has been a member of working group that created the Learning Support Action Plan and the Curriculum Progress and Achievement Advisory Group.
He also has seven years experience as a RTLB (Resource Teacher of Learning and Behaviour) in Wellington working with teachers and parents to help change the learning environment for children and teenagers so that they could succeed.
Jonathan has also worked with unemployed adults teaching computer skills.