Sue-Ellen Nevala, ECE Director,
Westboro Village Cooperative Preschool

Ms. Nevala has been an early Childhood educator for many years. She takes “pride in developing programs where young children can learn through new challenges, happily and at their own pace.” She believes in creating classrooms that will “inspire and educate preschoolers. Most strongly, Sue-Ellen believes that children must have fun while learning. In our community Ms. Nevala’s professionalism is recognized through her ten years work at Fern Hill School, in Rockcliffe, and the Good Morning School, another Ottawa cooperative preschool. Sue-Ellen says “I am so happy to have spent the last five years working at Westboro Village Cooperative Preschool.” Well, we’ve been happy to have her!

Lise (Cossette) Collins,
WVCP Co-educator

“My greatest happiness,” says Lise, “was staying home with my children, and starting my own daycare.” Her educational career first started by working with Engineers (“big kids,” she calls them). Then, after working in the administration of the Canadian Amateur Diving Association, she moved on to coaching at the Ottawa Gymnastics Centre, rising quickly to the Facility Director's position.

She owned and operated her own private daycare, in Ottawa, for four years. She sums up her attitude toward teaching in this way: “I've always loved and wanted to work with children ever since High School. Being able to see the joy in their faces as they experience new things is the best job that I could have.”

Nancy Lockwood,
Music Specialist

Nancy has been working with children for 26 years, and we, at the Westboro Village Cooperative Preschool, have been lucky enough to have her with us for eleven of them. She began teaching music and reading at the “Early Learning Centre” in Toronto, eventually becoming the school’s principal. In 1986, Nancy moved to Ottawa and started a family. While raising her two children, now 22 and 17, Nancy worked, part-time, teaching group music classes and tutoring young readers. She has also taught private music classes for children, aged six months to six years, and at the Dovercourt Recreation Centre and the Soloway J.C.C.

The music program Nancy uses at the WVCP incorporates elements of Carl Orff’s approach to rhythm; Zoltan Kodaly’s pitches and hand signs (do-re-me-fa-so-la-ti-do); and eurythmics, or movement to music.

Nancy says “I love teaching at the WVCP, the preschool that my own children went to many years ago!”