Introducing Vikki Cummins, HSIE Teacher

Staff Story

Vikki Cummins, teacher of Geography, Commerce, Business Management and Business Studies at Santa Sabina since 2022, is ardent about equipping our senior students to be entrepreneurs of the future. Her championship of immersive learning brings her lessons to life and to the attention of educators worldwide, as an example of educational leadership and innovation.  

As one of our most innovative and committed teachers, Vikki Cummins was thrilled to be awarded the Santa Sabina College Board Staff Scholarship for 2024 which will enable her to attend the International Coalition of Girls’ Schools Symposium in Baltimore Maryland USA in June 2024. At the symposium she will meet and network with other teachers from across the globe, all of whom will be focused on girls’ education and what the future will look like.

Teaching is Vikki’s second career. Before motherhood, Vikki worked in sales and marketing at Microsoft, having undertaken a business degree after leaving school. Wanting to inspire others by applying her corporate experience into education, Vikki decided to pursue a new direction and has now been a teacher for more than 10 years, teaching in Brisbane as well as in Sydney, in co-ed, boys’ and girls’ schools.

At Santa Sabina, Vikki’s headline achievement this year has been her leadership of the creation of our students’ digital start-up social enterprise, Santa Style.

Vikki’s eyes light up when she’s talking about Santa Style – an award-winning endeavour which successfully incorporates her background training and experience in business and her more recent career as a teacher. The immersive learning embedded in this entrepreneurial project cements the skills and attributes needed by today’s school students for their future careers.

‘Santa Style was born as a way for Santa students to start a business from scratch by applying what they learn in the classroom to real life’, Vikki says.

‘Santa Style is a technology based, not-for-profit initiative, creating a circular model of clothing to ultimately reduce fashion pollution (the volume of fashion waste going into landfill) within our local community. Santa Sabina College families are able to donate preloved clothing, have this processed, and then made available for sale or swap on the e-commerce web site. All proceeds support the work of the Dominican Sisters in the Solomon Islands and South Africa,’ she explains.

This disruptive business model has won several awards for the students involved, who have presented to the UTS StartUps Summit this year and have become mentors to students at another school looking to create their own innovative real-life business. Santa Style was the only award winner from Australia in an international competition attracting 300 entries worldwide, the 2023 Global Youth Action Award from the International Baccalaureate Organisation. The award recognises social enterprises set up by students that meet with one of the United Nations’ Strategic Goals, in this instance, Goal 12 – responsible consumption and production.

‘As part of this award we received a grant of almost $5000’, Vikki says.

Did Vikki have all of this in mind when she initiated Santa Style with the students?

‘No’, she says. ‘What I had in mind was a way of teaching the students about business in the most effective manner’. Being true Dominicans and change-makers, the students sought to create a more sustainable world – disrupting the traditional retail fashion model with a closed-loop system that minimises waste, reduces environmental impact, and promotes social responsibility.

After hours Vikki is enjoying the resurgence of social life that comes once children have reached adulthood, as the younger of her children has just completed the HSC. She is also a keen gardener and loves long walks with her husband and friends.

Above all though, Vikki is keen to educate our young women for successful future careers where they will drive creative ideas, while possessing a good understanding of technology and the enthusiasm to advance the community with social enterprise.

Victoria Harper
Publications and Marketing Officer