Meet the founders of Gecko School in Phuket —  Celi Harper and Huw Roberts, pas­sion­ate and expe­ri­enced teach­ers with a new vision of edu­ca­tion in Thai­land.

Celi Harper

Celi Harper com­plet­ed her Bach­e­lor of Teach­ing degree in Queens­land, Aus­tralia in 1991. For the past 25 years she has taught in pub­lic and inter­na­tion­al schools in Aus­tralia, Eng­land, Tan­za­nia, Chi­na and Thai­land. Dur­ing her teach­ing career she has taught all pri­ma­ry years as a class­room teacher and has spe­cialised in ICT, Art, Lit­er­a­cy, Glob­al Edu­ca­tion and Library. Celi shows a com­mit­ment to remain­ing up-to-date with new devel­op­ments, a strong inter­est in edu­ca­tion­al issues and a keen desire to pass on knowl­edge. Through­out her teach­ing career Celi has attend­ed a great deal of in-ser­vice and train­ing which have helped her to con­tin­u­ous­ly grow and bet­ter meet the needs of the chil­dren in her class.

Celi val­ues com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice as a way of unit­ing peo­ple from diverse back­grounds to work towards a com­mon goal. From an ear­ly age her par­ents taught her the val­ue of help­ing oth­ers less for­tu­nate than her­self through Lions Inter­na­tion­al. This con­tin­ued into her adult­hood  where she worked with Sudane­se refugees in Aus­tralia, taught in a rural vil­lage in Ghana, fed the home­less in Aus­tralia, worked with local com­mu­ni­ties in Tan­za­nia, set up a char­i­ty to edu­cate boys in Ghana and to pay the tuition fees of a Kenyan lady to com­plete her teach­ing degree, was pho­tog­ra­pher for Tag Rug­by Trust in Ugan­da, Zam­bia and India, assist­ed at the Soi Dog foun­da­tion,  fundraised for Sichuan Quake Relief and assist­ed in sports activ­i­ties in quake relief zones.

Celi admires peo­ple with  integri­ty and believes utmost in being prin­ci­pled and stand­ing up for what you believe in. Her hob­bies include trav­el­ling, meet­ing locals, pho­tog­ra­phy, swim­ming and cook­ing.

Huw Roberts

Huw Roberts orig­i­nates from South Wales in the UK but has lived and worked in Eng­land, Aus­tralia, Philip­pines, Tai­wan, France, Kenya, Tan­za­nia, Chi­na and Thai­land. He obtained his teach­ing degree in Pri­ma­ry Edu­ca­tion spe­cial­is­ing in Maths and Phys­i­cal Edu­ca­tion from Glouces­ter­shire Uni­ver­si­ty.  As a teacher, Huw uses a vari­ety of meth­ods and strate­gies to teach the chil­dren in his class. He draws on his strengths to help raise the stan­dards with­in his class­es through plan­ning, teach­ing, assess­ment and class­room man­age­ment. He believes all chil­dren should have access to a broad and bal­anced cur­ricu­lum and he strives to nur­ture them to become inde­pen­dent and cre­ative thinkers with a pos­i­tive atti­tude towards the world around them.

Huw believes that help­ing local com­mu­ni­ties has a pos­i­tive effect on every­one involved. He has not only worked in inter­na­tion­al schools  in Tan­za­nia, Chi­na, Aus­tralia and Thai­land but has also con­tribut­ed to the local com­mu­ni­ties through vol­un­teer work. For the past fif­teen years he has been involved with  the UK based char­i­ty TRT (Tag Rug­by Trust — build­ing futures through rug­by)  by coor­di­nat­ing and lead­ing vol­un­teer and school group tours to Ugan­da, Zam­bia and India.

Huw lists being prin­ci­pled and hon­est as core human val­ues. He has many inter­ests, some of which include trav­el­ling, trekking, sport (play­ing and watch­ing), scuba div­ing, lis­ten­ing to music, read­ing and watch­ing films. He also loves dogs, a lot.