Join us at the Huddle Symposium 2023
Australia’s Biggest Secondary School Middle Leadership Conference
Date
24th November, 2023
Location
Melbourne Polytechnic (Preston Campus), Building U/67 Cramer St, Preston VIC 3072
Conference Parking
Public Transport
To find out more contact
Keynote
Leadership development is everyone’s responsibility:
navigating the muddy waters of the education ecosystem
Dr. Barbara Watterston
CEO of the Australian Council for Educational Leaders (ACEL)
This keynote and activity session is all about you. Who you are as a leader, your impact and influence, and how this is crafted through creating your own leadership identity. Barbara will draw on her experience to share insights, observations and leadership lessons offering you valuable time to pause and reflect on your current context and future steps. Provocations will engage you in reconceptualising expectations of middle leaders both on a personal level and as part of a collective effort. You will be encouraged to contemplate leading not only in your current context, but in the context of the whole picture. With an emphasis on leading from the middle not in the middle, and the conditions to enable all to thrive, yourself included. We’ll delve into why leadership development is everyone’s responsibility, one that is approached strategically and with intentionality. Importantly, we will consider our collective aspirations to actively contribute to shaping the voice and agency of the profession in advocating for meaningful policy changes and impactful practices within the muddy waters of the education ecosystem.
Workshops
Dr. Sophie Specjal and Heidi Arena
The Art and Impact of Effective Communication in Educational Leadership
We are living through a communication revolution where ideas, stories and facts are globally communicated 24/7, yet our understanding, connectedness and deeper learning can often feel fragmented, surface and fleeting. Sophie and Heidi explore meaningful human interactions, including effective listening and communication with others and the impact this has on being effective with others. In this workshop, Sophie and Heidi describe the ‘art of communication’ as a potent ‘superpower’, inherent in an educator’s DNA.
Effective communication for leaders in schools is an essential tool to build a culture of clarity, connection, and collaboration through our interactions, listening and understanding of one another. Sophie and Heidi share personal anecdotes and thought-provoking stories, together with research and the practical strategies needed to design and tap into a deeper understanding of how and more importantly ‘why’ we need to communicate more effectively to enhance our leadership capabilities.
Neil McDonald
Leading Critical Conversations
This practical session will focus on an evidence-based model for leading difficult conversations in the workplace. It is based on the significant work from Crucial Conversations and is a critical piece to assisting all middle leaders engage confidently with the range of difficult conversations they face in their crucial leadership role.
Dr. Michael Witter
Transforming teaching: the intersection of teacher beliefs, practices, and outcomes
Transforming teaching is fraught and often unsuccessful work for school leaders. This session will highlight key research unpacking how teachers’ beliefs, practices, and outcomes interact in the change process (or lack thereof). Mike Witter will share practical, evidence-based tips on how school leaders can build beliefs and mindsets that nurture and sustain positive change in the classroom.
Wayne Craig
Curiouser and curiouser: the intriguing story of the “known unknown” and school improvement.
In this hands-on session, based on Wayne’s doctoral research, you’ll learn about your level of curiosity, your school’s strength of moral purpose, reserves of intellectual capital and how these factors can work together to improve student learning. The focus is on the “known unknown”, curiosity, with a particular emphasis on how workplace curiosity can support your school improvement efforts. You’ll learn about apparent Australian strengths in workplace curiosity, moral purpose and school capital, and critical principal and teacher perceptions gaps.
Panel Discussion
Overview:
How does generative AI work and its implications for assessment
- Understanding how large language models like ChatGPT work.
- Strengths and limitations of generative AI.
- Impact of generative (and classification) AI in assessment and reporting.
Panel Speaker
Dr James Curran
CEO and Director Grok Academy
Dr. James Curran is the CEO of Grok Academy, an Australian ed-tech charity with a mission to educate all learners in transformative computing skills, knowledge, and dispositions, empowering them to meet the challenges and seize the opportunities of the future.
Panel MC
Garry Williams
Director of Engagement at Tractor Ventures
Garry Williams has extensive experience navigating Australia’s technology & creative ecosystem, having worked on innovation projects for scaleups & startups, global agencies, government, local councils, social enterprises, universities, cultural institutions and creative project houses.
