Denny has had a varied teaching career, beginning in the 1970’s. She trained as in Palmerston North, doing what was then called the Graduate teacher training programme. This was a condensed primary teacher training for university graduates.
She taught at primary and intermediate schools for two years, then, having started a family, worked part-time at the Linton Youth Justice Facility.
This was followed by a move to Adelaide where she taught in a secondary school and an adolescent psychiatric facility.
On returning to New Zealand, Denny worked at Rotorua Boys’ High School for 18years, during which time she taught English, reading, ELL and developed a unit for students with special learning needs. She did the CELTA (now CTEFLA) training and developed a unit for International Students. Denny also began to employ a team of teacher aides, working closely with them to provide support for special needs and ELL students.
On leaving Rotorua Boys’ High, Denny took up a position of Director of Studies at Taylors College, Auckland. After two years, she decided she preferred working with New Zealand students with special learning and/or behavioural needs and spent a period of time as Campus Director at Felix Donnelly College.
Following this a position as Literacy Leader at James Cook High School came up, and during her 16 years at the school Denny worked as Literacy Leader then SENCo. During this time she was seconded by Learning Media for 3 years to work part-time as a Literacy Facilitator in the three Manurewa High Schools.
A team of 25 teacher aides was developed and Denny focused on providing PLD for them and providing a career path through the development of lead teacher aides. As part of this, Denny acquired PLD in Neurodiversity and tools to support neurodiverse students.
She has written a number of text-books and short readers over this time, and has recently completed a work-book style text which addresses the skills required to be successful in the new NCEA Level 1 (English Medium) standards.
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