Welcome

I'm Kelly Ilich, and I'm on a mission to help as many teachers as I can to maximise their impact, and lead fulfilling, inspirational teaching careers.

Becoming a teacher was an obvious choice for me

I’ve been teaching here in Australia since 2006, with a range of experience across the industry. I’ve always felt a calling to make an impact in the world, and teaching seemed like the best way for me to do that. I’ve loved having the opportunity to help so many of my students over the years to unlock their potentials and discover their own strengths, interests and talents. It’s an honour to have that kind of positive impact on someone's life.

It wasn't always easy though...

I had a rough start to my career, as many teachers do. My first placement was a hard-to-staff city school for a one term maternity leave placement. I had no idea how to handle the many social and behavioural issues that were (sometimes literally) thrown at me. I would wake up every morning with a sense of dread in the pit of my stomach, and would toss and turn at night wondering how on earth I was going to tackle the next day. Whilst my colleagues were friendly enough, there was very little support given to a brand new teacher who felt very much out of her depth.

My next placement was in the country, and I was given one week’s notice to pack up and move there. There was no available accommodation, so I had to board on a farm for a few months until something came up. As it was such a small school, I was the only teacher there in my subject area, and the previous teacher had left behind nothing.

There was no programs, no resources, nothing - I had to start from scratch with no guidance or support.

I made it through that first year, and thankfully things started getting better.

But, unfortunately, my experience is not unique, and it’s no wonder that around 1 in 3 teachers end up quitting in their first 5 years, due to feelings of stress, overwhelm and frustration, with many citing the main reason being a lack of support.

And it’s not just in the beginning years that teachers need support. They need it through their whole career. There were so many times during my career that I could have used a consistent guiding hand - a mentor or a coach that I could rely on, no matter what school I was working in or what position I was in - to bounce ideas off, to give me advice from a different perspective, and to help me figure out exactly what path I wanted my career to go down.

Life very much revolved around my teaching career, until my husband and I welcomed our baby girl into the world. Life now revolved around her and I chose to take some time to be at home, which I have not regretted for a second. However, that calling to make an impact in the wider world persisted, and I began mulling over ideas of how I could best use my skills and abilities to keep making a contribution and help other teachers, whilst staying at home with my daughter. Also, as many parents experience, having children alters your perspective on the world, and makes you even more invested in the future.

That was how Future Focused Teaching & Learning came to be. Through this website, my aim is to provide support and coaching to as many teachers as I can, by offering resources, online courses, and an online membership: the Transformational Teachers Academy. This way, I am providing the coaching, support and guidance that I wished that I could have had throughout my career. The more teachers that feel empowered and supported to unleash their full potentials, the bigger the impact that they will have on their students and the world in general.

My other aim, as the name might suggest, is more focused towards the future. I want to contribute towards creating a better world for future generations, and I want to make sure we are equipping our students with the skills that they need to have a successful future, and to deal with the various problems or challenges that they may encounter such as environmental, political or social issues. Therefore, I place a large emphasis on 21st century skills such as problem solving, creativity, critical thinking, discernment, emotional intelligence and collaboration, to name just a few.

I am so happy to offer you these resources and I would love to provide you with the coaching, mentoring and support that I wish that I could have had access to throughout my career.

I look forward to meeting you!

Come and join us

Become a member of the Transformational Teachers Academy, where you will be provided with coaching and support within a supportive community of like-minded, inspirational teachers. We would love to meet you.

Learn more