Mrs Lofts, who started at Ulladulla High at the beginning of 2013, was a recipient of a NSW Premiers Teaching Scholarship, sponsored by Price Waterhouse Coppers, allowing her to undertake the study trip.

As part of the tour Mrs Lofts was given great insight into learning practices at leading schools and universities across Asia and the US.

“I travelled for five weeks in my holidays from January 1 to February 4, attending conferences, residencies, visiting universities,” Mrs Lofts explained.

“I travelled to Indonesia visiting Yogyakarta , China where I visited Beijing, Xian and Shanghai and the US visiting San Diego, Detroit and Oregon.”

During the trip, Mrs Lofts was focused on learning as much as she could to bring back to Ulladulla High and enhance staff knowledge and student learning.

“I was researching what school leaders do to build entrepreneurial, creative, Asia literate students,” she said.

“The highlight was High Tech High in San Diego, where students are truly immersed in the most amazing 21st century real world learning. 

“My head is exploding with great new ideas that will be very transferable to our school. 

“It is an exciting time in education in NSW to really make a difference.”

Along with visiting high schools, Mrs Lofts had the chance to form friendships with leading academics.

“What I found very inspiring was visiting a number of professors in universities, Professor Michan Chang from New Shanghai University and Professor Yong Zhao from Oregon University, who has offered to be an academic partner for UHS and myself,” Mrs Lofts said. 

“He is the professor who wrote the book on world class global learners. 

“His mentoring will be part of research around building entrepreneurial schools within our NSW system.”

Mrs Lofts’ partnership with Professor Zhao was not the only connection formed, as she also formed ties with the others who will visit Ulladulla to share their knowledge with Ulladulla High School staff.

“I have collaborated with principal mentors from High Tech High graduate school who will be visiting in April to work with our teachers,” Mrs Lofts said.

The five week experience was a rewarding one for Mrs Lofts who said she felt more inspired in her role and principal and looked forward to working with her team at Ulladulla High to continue to improve the learning of students across the school.

“I feel very privileged to have been given another opportunity to seek out the most contemporary thinking about learning for our school,” she said.