Surekha (Sue) Venkatesh says until the age of 45, she worked to live and pay the bills. Now she lives to work, having finally found her true path in life as an Education Support officer at Emerson.
“When I came to Emerson, I realised I had found me. This is what I am,” Sue says. “Finally, after all these years, I have a sense that I’m doing what I’m meant to be doing. I have really found true happiness and a sense of self-worth here.”
Sue says the school’s motto of unlocking the students’ potential is exactly what Emerson does. “They unlock the potential of every student, and that really means something here. It’s not just words. Every child has special gifts and talents, but sometimes it takes patience and kindness to uncover those talents and bring them out to shine. That’s what Emerson does best.”
Working in Junior School classroom support provides Sue with a great opportunity to work closely with some of the more challenging younger children and really spend the time helping them discover their special talents.
“Sometimes at school assembly I cry when I see the progress the students have made—for example, a child now in Middle School who plays a musical instrument so beautifully at assembly, and who has made so much amazing progress since he was with us in Junior School.”
Sue says working at Emerson has really opened her mind to what is possible for the children. “What Emerson is doing, and what they offer, is making such a difference and the students are really happy.”
Sue was born in India, in the southern state of Karnataka. Her mother was a teacher, and she remembers being surrounded from her earliest days by children, with her mother teaching and tutoring and embracing both teaching and learning.
She moved to Australia at 22 years of age, after marrying Venkatesh and following him here, and admits she found the transition difficult at first. “I felt like a small fish who had jumped from a jar of water into the ocean. It was a struggle to understand the culture, language, food and finding new friends.”
She says despite the distance from home, her mother was always her role model. Teaching and working with children was in Sue’s blood—only she didn’t realise it fully until she got to Emerson and found her calling.
Sadly, Sue’s mother passed away the year before Sue decided to pursue a career in Education Support, but she feels her mother’s presence at times and thinks her mother may have guided her to this place.
Sue started her career studying and then working as an electronics technician, before moving into before- and after-school care, studying both childcare and bookkeeping.
Throughout many years in the workforce across a range of roles and organisations, Sue says something was always missing. Then a friend who works at Emerson, Junior School teacher Janet D’Souza, suggested she might be good at classroom support work, so Sue completed a course and applied for a placement at Emerson.
She loved the placement so much she was thrilled when a job became available and she immediately applied.
Outside work, Sue has two daughters, now young adults, one of whom still lives with her, the other married and in her own home. Her daughters both graduated in Indian classical dance, and Sue has maintained a keen interest in dance despite being more of a spectator than a participant. She loves music, particularly anything soothing such as Indian classical music.
In addition to working full-time at Emerson, Sue also teaches her first language, Kannada, as a Casual Relief Teacher at the Victorian School of Languages. Her students range in age from Grade 1 to Year 10.
She also enjoys participating in a Book Club that reads and discusses books written in Kannada.
[interviewed July 2026]
Photo credit: Photo supplied by Sue Venkatesh
