World Teachers’ Day: Albany teacher Amy Roggio reflects on her family’s passion for teaching

For Flinders Park Primary School teacher Amy Roggio, her passion for teaching runs in her blood.

The Year 2 teacher was the fifth person in her family to enter the profession, following in the footsteps of her parents and two older sisters.

Both her parents taught for 42 years, starting in Norseman and Esperance before moving to Albany where her mother Jackie Roggio taught at Flinders Park Primary School and her father Jim Roggio taught at Mt Lockyer Primary School for 30 years.

With her parents now retired, Ms Roggio and her sisters are their family’s next generation of teachers.

One sister, Kate Green, is a teacher at Albany Primary School and her other sister, Lisa Crabbe, does relief teaching at Flinders Park Primary School.

Previously working in retail management, Ms Roggio completed her final university practical placement at Flinders Park Primary School in 2020 before starting there permanently last year.

Ms Roggio said seeing her family’s passion for teaching inspired her to join the profession.

“I decided to become a teacher because I wanted to make a positive impact on children’s lives, not only in their education but in their social and emotional lives,” she said.

Ms Roggio now teaches at the same school where she attended primary school, and even teaches in what was once her Year 7 classroom, alongside some of her former teachers.

“There has been a Roggio here since 1989,” she said.

“I’m very proud of all the work my mother did here at the school and it is my aim to continue working just as hard as she did at this great school.

“A pre-primary student said to me last year ‘You taught my dad’. I laughed and said ‘No, my mum taught your dad’.”

Ms Roggio said she was particularly passionate about working in early childhood education.

“You can never really have a dull day when you’re working in early childhood,” she said.

“The stories that come out of the students, or even just the little arguments that happen, they’re always mildly entertaining in some way.

“I just really love working with the little kids, they really brighten up my day.”

Ahead of World Teachers’ Day on Friday, October 28, Ms Roggio said it was important to reflect on the impact teachers had on the next generation.

“Teachers do such an amazing job, we do so much more than teach the curriculum and our impact extends way beyond the classroom,” she said.