Bringing together a team of expert educators and learning designers
Huddle Learning Systems
Contact
Phone: 0417 386 123
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Schedule
| Presenter | Session Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Vic Zbar | Driving improvement through your school | This interactive presentation will focus on making things happen consistently in your school. With a particular focus on leadership it will include an outline of how change for improvement typically happens, the stages through which whole-school improvement progresses, and the key strategies to adopt in each stage. |
| Brigitte and Shannon Walker | Traffic Control. Stop: Slow: Give Way | This session will help you identify the many competing demands, both obvious and invisible and give you practical skills and strategies to manage them day to day. This will allow you to be a highly capable and effective leader, model clear boundaries, create psychological safety and support your school community to achieve great outcomes without holding the burden and weight of responsibility on your shoulders. Healthy leaders understand the importance of utilising both interpersonal and systems strategies to maintain longevity and resilience. |
| Chris Egan | ‘Resilify’: Powering up self-compassion to promote resilience | In this dynamic workshop leaders will connect with the science of self-compassion by engaging in a range of practical strategies to boost personal resilience. |
| Judy Petch | Experience alone does not improve performance | This interactive workshop will focus on how leaders can use the structures, processes and practices in their school to influence what happens in the classroom. Understanding the conditions that support the development of teacher expertise requires leaders to understand how teachers learn and develop expertise to impact student learning. |
| Ngatai Walker | Empower, Learn, Belong | This session will focus on sharing stories of empowering leadership and building strong, connected teams in both education and sports, highlighting the parallels between the two. Together, we will explore and practice strategies for empowering others through effective communication and collaboration, fostering a culture of continuous learning, and creating a sense of belonging within our learning organisations. |
| Jim Plunkett | Developing your leadership identity | Take the time to reflect on everything that you have heard at the Huddle 2024 Symposium and how you will apply this back into your own working environments. |
Bios
Vic Zbar
Vic Zbar has extensive consultancy and project management experience and is recognised internationally for his writing on education and range of education reports.
Prior to the establishment of Zbar Consulting, Vic was the Assistant Director of Human Resources in the Victorian Department of Education, having earlier been principal advisor to the Chief Executive, giving him an in-depth knowledge of the work of most aspects of the then Office of Schools. He is a widely published author in both education and management and is the author of the best selling Managing the future, published by Macmillan in 1995 and its sequel, Key Management Concepts published in 1996.
More recently Vic co-edited four volumes of Leading the Education Debate, published by the Centre for Strategic Education (CSE), and co-authored Better Schools, Better Teachers, Better Results, published in 2007 by ACER. He has written numerous articles and papers, and in April 2016 authored We need to talk about change: No prescription without diagnosis, published by CSE.
In 2014 Vic completed a Ministerial Review of Middle Schooling for the Northern Territory Department of Education which was accepted in full and has been implemented through the Department of Education in the NT.
Together with Pamela Macklin, Vic has authored two editions of the best-selling Driving School Improvement, published by ACER. Writing about them, Michael Fullan said ‘You will find no book that is as thorough and helpful for improving one’s school on an ongoing basis.’
Ngatai Walker
A champion of empowerment and learning, Ngatai has built a career fueled by a passion to promote personal and collective growth, celebrating the success of individuals in education and in sports.
Ngatai is a school principal in New Zealand and has worked across schools of varying sizes across the country.
His strengths lie in uniting teams and communities together to work towards a common purpose, rooted in the values of Whanāungatanga (connection), Manaakitanga (care), and Ako (learning).
His varied and successful career has meant Ngatai has been able to inspire many people in many roles, from dedicated teacher in NZ, UK and Germany, team leader, Deputy Principal, Learning with Digital Technologies Facilitator (CORE Education) to Puketapu School Principal and the New Plymouth Central Kāhui Ako Lead Principal.
Throughout his time as a Learning with Digital Technologies Facilitator at CORE Education, Ngatai has remained steadfast in his commitment to empowering individuals and communities through the integration of technology and education, harnessing the transformative power of digital innovation to enrich learning and growth.
In the sports arena, Ngatai is currently the Head Coach of the NZ Māori XV and NZU85 rugby teams. He has also coached the New Zealand Schools and New Zealand Māori U18 teams to series victories against strong opponents, and coached the Inglewood Premier Men’s and Taranaki Development Men’s teams to championship titles. In 2024, Ngatai was the Head Coach of the Hurricanes Poua women’s rugby team in the Super Rugby Aupiki competition.
Throughout his distinguished profession, Ngatai has embodied the very nature of a leader, empowering and leading others to achieve their full potential.
Chris Egan
Chris is a passionate and engaging positive psychology coach and facilitator who is curious about the power of human connection, and developing growth cultures that support others to function at their best. Chris is renowned for his capacity to forge strong relationships through his relaxed coaching style that supports individuals, groups, and organisations to cultivate evidenced-informed wellbeing interventions and strategies. Drawing on latest science and research, Chris uses his character strength of empathy to empower coaching partners in the codesign of bespoke wellbeing goals that are highly relevant, actionable and achieve desired outcomes.
Chris has spent the last 25 years supporting small businesses, educational settings, and professional sporting organisations to grow and develop. Chris holds a Bachelor of Education, Masters in Applied Positive Psychology from Melbourne University, and a Certificate Four in Workplace Training & Assessment. Chris is also an accredited coach/trainer for McREL International and is a certified debriefer for the PERMAH Wellbeing Survey.
Judy Petch
Judy Petch is a Victorian educator who has combined a 25-year career as a Victorian secondary teacher, with work at the state level as the General Manager for School Improvement in the Victorian Department of Education and at the national level for AITSL. She was awarded an Australian Winston Churchill Fellowship to study and report on principal preparation internationally and was made a Fellow of the Victorian Chapter of ACEL in recognition of her contribution to system leadership. She holds post-graduate master’s degrees in education and leadership from The University of Melbourne and Monash University. Judy was made an Honorary Fellow of the Melbourne Graduate School of Education in 2013. She is now an independent education consultant working with Victorian schools. Judy’s primary focus is teacher and leadership expertise and has spent recent years observing classroom practice and providing feedback and coaching to teachers at all stages of their careers. This has been combined with supporting school leaders to develop and construct pedagogical frameworks that align with their vision and mission for young people.
Brigitte & Shannon Walker
Brigitte Walker is a highly sought-after facilitator who has worked from grassroots service provision to strategic leadership and is adept at understanding and strengthening people and team cultures. With core training as a social worker, she is deeply interested in teams, systems, and structures and is ever committed to ensuring every voice is heard.
Shannon Walker, with diverse roles in education and public service, specialises in mental health and wellbeing, leading projects designed to support and develop healthy workplaces. She encourages critical reflection, empowering clients to embrace strengths and enhance a sense of belonging.
Jim Plunkett
Jim Plunkett, is an experienced leader in the area of Leadership and Team Development. With over 20 years of experience in both professional sports (as a player and administrator) and corporate organisations, Jim brings invaluable expertise. His passion for people and his facilitation skills which have been refined over many years, provide great value to the companies, teams and individuals he works with.
Jim has experienced AFL at the highest level playing with the Western Bulldogs and Carlton Football Clubs. After his football career, Jim played a pivotal role as one of the founding athletes at Leading Teams, contributing significantly to the development of high-performing teams and the implementation of leadership programs. From there he joined the Melbourne Football Club as the General Manager of People and Culture, with his focus being to cultivate a high performance culture across the entire football club. Now, Jim has a focus on the growing demand for effective solutions in leadership development, high performance and team cohesion.
Garry Williams
Gaz runs a specialist advisory+execution brand, centred on the overlap of brand-building and capital growth stages for tech focused companies.
Gaz was first employee at Tractor Ventures, leading their brand-building & marketing for the company that became the fastest growing fintech in Aus.
Previously, he was Creative Producer of Innovation at University of Melbourne, and worked on some very strange projects at Science Gallery Melbourne.
As well as running partnerships at global education startup General Assembly, and running coworking operations at Inspire9, Gaz has held ambassador roles such as Melbourne lead for Social Enterprise Network Victoria, and loves to deliver tech focused activations and think-tanks with a creative+tech overlap.