Our Centre Manager
Sharon
I was born and educated in Ngaruawahia. I moved to Hamilton when I was 18, and my first job was as a bank teller, working for the then Hamilton Post Office. I was the first of their employees to get 95% in the final exam at their training school! After three and a half years, I moved on to work with private companies, in the role of Accounts Payable and other office administration tasks. Later on I spent a year with ‘Youth with a Mission’, based in Singapore. I travelled with this group, through India, Sri Lanka and Kalimantan (Borneo).
I returned to Ngaruawahia, where I worked with mostly teenagers and young women, alongside a local church. I followed this with a year’s study at New Zealand Bible College in Auckland, then a year’s study in hairdressing! I worked for a year in a local salon, before marrying my lovely husband and becoming a mum to my now 17 year old daughter. She keeps me young.
One of my interests is my job!  It is absorbing, challenging, and interesting. However, I do have other interests such as enjoying coffee and cake at a cafe with family, watching a good movie, a dip in the local pool, and gardening when I have time. I also love to explore our beautiful country with my family.
When my daughter started school, I worked as a home based caregiver, and then a Teacher Aide, and then a Education Support Worker, with Conductive Education, Waikato. Conductive Education supports children with motor disabilities, such as Cerebral Palsy. In 2004 I began training towards a Diploma in Early Childhood Education (ECE), and worked as a part time reliever at a child care centre in Flagstaff. I have since qualified as an ECE teacher and I am now fully registered.
I enjoy working in ECE because I love little people. I love the relationship you can build with children. Being an ECE teacher means I can have a meaningful impact in the life of a child and contribute to their learning. Children are fun, delightful, challenging, and can say the most amazing things. You never stop learning yourself in ECE, and there is such a wide scope of opportunities within which to work.
Sharon Udy,
Centre Manager