In Profile: Dale Casburn

Dale commenced at Radford last year, taking over the role of Head of Student Pathways vacated by Suzanne Rentsch.

Dale began his career in Queanbeyan as an apprentice within his family’s automotive business. After completing his apprenticeship, Dale went on to study Design and Construction Engineering at the University of Canberra. This eventually led to him gaining his secondary teaching qualification in these areas.

As a graduate teacher, Dale’s first job was at The City of London Academy in Southeast London, UK. After a few years teaching in high school Dale decided to transition to Further Education, taking on the position of Automotive and Engineering Lecturer at City of Westminster College. Dale remained in London for a further three years before returning to Australia in 2010.

He continued teaching and accepted a position at St Paul’s Catholic College Manly, Sydney. Throughout his time at St Paul’s Dale held many management positions and since 2015 worked predominantly in Vocational Education and Career Counselling.

‘Leaving Manly was a difficult decision as I was very passionate about my school and enjoyed working and living between the beach and Sydney Harbour, but with the majority of my family being based here and having two young boys, moving back to the ACT has been a good decision in terms of support and ease of living.’

Dale credits the work of Suzanne Rentsch: ‘Term 4 2021 offered amazing professional development for me, with Suzanne and I both working together. Radford students are quite varied in their aspirations compared to other schools, meaning the careers counsellor needs to be across just about every higher education provider both in Australia and worldwide. The wealth of information Suzanne was able to pass on has been significant.’

During a difficult first term at Radford last year due to lockdown, Dale focused on implementing new systems to help streamline the way students find information on careers and pathways. This included working with the team that developed Nexus to integrate a dedicated pathways website.

Using data collected from students Dale is also developing ways to target specific information to individuals and groups of students with similar interests related to their pathway. ‘With so much information students can sometimes become overwhelmed when thinking about their future,’ he says. ‘Giving specific information directly to the student, along with showing them the best way to access information, I hope to be able to ease the burden of making these difficult decisions’.