Gina Colhoun (Edwards – Class of 1984)
Posted on October 20, 2025
When Stephanie and Lyndsay Farrall employed Gina Colhoun (Edwards) (1984) to teach a composite year 1/2 class in 1990, she was so new to the work, her parents Pam Edwards (Chapman) (1958) and Euan Edwards (1958) came to help her set up her classroom the day before her first day of teaching.
Gina says she’s seen a lot change at The Friends’ School since that day: a technology-driven transformation in how teachers communicate with students and parents; a stronger focus on wellbeing, spirituality, reflection, inquiry, play-based learning and on relevant, meaningful action; and a school population that’s doubled in size since her first day, with “classrooms that are much more diverse – culturally, neurologically, emotionally – in response to changes in our society”.
She doesn’t like everything that’s changed. “So many more compliance requirements, administrative challenges and restrictions around risk management, I feel, are a sad reflection on our society.” That said, “the school has always had a unique perspective in terms of helping to grow global citizens, focussing on pastoral care and connection, and it’s more explicit now.”
Her three children all attended Friends’: Edward (2014), who completed a Bachelor of Business through Adelaide University and is a property valuer in Hobart; Louis (2017), who this year has started his own business, LBC Plumbing; and Charles (2022), who is completing a building apprenticeship. “The School gave them so many life-expanding opportunities,” she says. But what kept Gina teaching at the same school for 35 years? “The work was exciting and ever-changing, with best-practice teaching and learning opportunities,” she says. “But I could never have taught full-time for 35 years. I’m grateful to have been able to teach part-time and to have a lot of time at home to bring up my boys.”
Gina, who aligns herself with Quaker philosophies, teaches Year 2 students at Friends’ Primary School. She says she has grown into the person she is because of “supportive, talented, thoughtful, passionate colleagues, many who have become lifelong friends,” and all the children in her classes, whom she “has happily learned far more from than I have ever taught them over the years”.
