Blogs and Messages

WA Branch News: April 2024

By Mathilda Joubert posted 2 days ago
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Reigniting our Passion for Teaching and Leading Welcome to Term 2! In this WA newsletter we will briefly reflect back on Term 1, look forward at an exciting array of events planned for Term 2 and reflect on a topical think on strategies to support teacher wellbeing. Reflecting Back Term 1 flew by with a host of exciting ACEL events. We started the year with our Breakfast with the Minister and Sector Leaders event in February, exploring the challenges and opportunities for education in Western Australia in 2024. In March we held a Leading Innovation in Education Network meeting with speakers addressing diverse topics ...
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VIC Branch News: April 2024

By Hayley Dureau posted 2 days ago
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Highlights from the 2023 ACEL VIC Awards Ceremony The Australian Council for Educational Leaders (ACEL) VIC Branch recently hosted its annual awards ceremony, recognizing outstanding individuals whose contributions have significantly impacted the field of education in Victoria. Among the esteemed recipients were Deborah Harman, Jane Wilkinson, Murrundindi, Coralee Pratt, and a cohort of exemplary educators honored with ACEL VIC Fellowships. The awards ceremony brought together educators from government, independent, and catholic schools across metropolitan Melbourne and rural and regional Victoria. Thank you to the ACEL VIC Branch Awards Committee ...
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ACT Branch News: April 2024

By Sandra Darley posted 2 days ago
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Dear Members, I hope this Newsletter finds you well at the beginning of Term 2. We had a very successful Awards ceremony in March at which colleagues from each of our sectors were honoured for their contributions to educational leadership and research in the ACT. We are currently planning the Ministers Breakfast on 17 May at the National Portrait Gallery. Please don’t forget to register as this is a very popular event. I have taken the liberty of inviting members of our Executive to write the editorial comments for each edition of our Newsletter this year. Tracey Taylor who is a highly respected educator and previous Principal of Samford Valley ...
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QLD Branch News: April 2024

By Elizabeth Foster posted 2 days ago
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As the Queensland Branch for ACEL, we have clarity of our purpose in that we will continue to provide resonant and innovative professional learning opportunities, which enable a platform for educational leaders and individuals who have an interest in the profession to share discourse and research. We trust that again you will join with us both at in-person and hybrid events as we collectively build the leadership knowledge, skills, understanding and capability of our current and future educational leaders. In these initial months of 2024, we recognise the significant thinking, planning and sequencing in ensuring meaningful learning opportunities ...
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SA Branch News: April 2024

By Martyn Anderson posted 2 days ago
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Dear ACEL SA Members, On Wednesday, May 1, we're thrilled to host a Hot Topic event featuring Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath. Renowned as a neuroscientist and educator specializing in human learning, memory, and brain stimulation, Jared brings a wealth of expertise. With experience conducting research and lecturing at Harvard University, Harvard Medical School, and the University of Melbourne, his work has been published in the New Yorker, the Economist, the Atlantic, and the New York Times. We're incredibly fortunate to have Jared join us in person. During this event, he'll share thought-provoking insights into our learning processes, the development of ...
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NSW Branch News: April 2024

By Paul Kidson posted 3 days ago
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Dear colleagues, It’s back to school for NSW this week. Hopefully you’ve been able to enjoy some rest and time for reflection on Term 1. As the busyness of a term gets underway, the impact of the rest can quickly dissipate. Perhaps, though, you might find a new strategy to build into your routine, perhaps an extra ten minutes to spend quietly, perhaps an extra walk around the block to clear your head. As the challenges below highlight, sustaining ourselves for the task of leading is critical at the best of times, and perhaps feels even more so at the moment. The start of this term brings a welcome opportunity to pass on positive suggestions to principals’ ...
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ACEL National Awards and New Voice Scholarships 2024 – nominations now open!

By Barbara Watterston posted 21-03-2024
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National Awards We are delighted to open our call for ACEL’s prestigious peer-nominated National Awards, proudly recognising the education profession for the 39th year. Nominations are welcomed from all members of the education community, both ACEL members and non-members. This year we have further streamlined the nomination process to assist you in making nominations. ACEL National Awards are awarded in the following categories: Gold Medal Award The ACEL Gold Medal is the most prestigious honour awarded by ACEL and is presented to an Australian educator whose influence and contribution to the study and practice of educational leadership is assessed ...
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The Power of Emotional Connection

By Ray Boyd posted 05-03-2024
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The Power of Emotional Connection Schools, by their very nature, involve interacting with people. Therefore, if you don’t like people, then a school is not an environment that you should choose to work in, given the level of interactions that occur every day. Interactions occur between colleagues, teachers and parents, and teachers and students. They vary from simple interactions, such as a greeting, through to more complex interactions around teaching and learning. What makes these interactions complex however is that they are all, in most cases, connected to emotions. It is our emotions that then guide us towards either an attraction or aversion to something ...
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WA Branch News: March 2024

By Mathilda Joubert posted 04-03-2024
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Good day to our ACEL WA Community This edition of our monthly WA newsletter will contain a guest article from one of our ACEL WA Branch Executives on the power of emotional connection in education, followed by a report on our Breakfast with the Minister and sector leaders event that was held in February, plus a glimpse ahead at upcoming ACEL events in WA over the next few months. I hope to see you at some of these events. The Power of Emotional Connection By Dr Ray Boyd, Principal, Dayton Primary School Schools, by their very nature, involve interacting with people. Therefore, if you don’t like people, then a school is not an environment that you ...
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Balancing student choice with collective knowledge

By Ashley Pratt posted 04-03-2024
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We live in an era of opinion, an age of ‘alternative facts’ and ‘fake news’. There are a variety of causes for this current reality, and not all of them are related to schools and the curriculum. Still, we should not be blind to schools' critical role in preparing students to be active and engaged citizens in our democratic society. This challenge underscores the pivotal role of schools and curriculum in anchoring our civic discourse within a framework of collectively accepted realities. As we navigate the age of opinion, I am reminded of Michael Young's work on ‘Powerful Knowledge’. Young's research advocates for a curriculum that transcends the immediacy ...
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TAS Branch News: March 2024

By Jacqui Lawless posted 04-03-2024
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We hope your school year has started positively and you are now in a position to join us for our annual welcome event. This event is always a great way to start the year by renewing connections and making new ones. It is an opportunity to share our successes so far and perhaps gain support with our challenges. We are looking forward to hearing how ACEL can support you and what you would like to be engaged with during the upcoming school year. We are combining a social and networking gathering with an opportunity to hear from three long-standing ACEL members who can share some insights into what ACEL has meant and can mean in one’s professional life. We ...
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SA Branch News: March 2024

By Martyn Anderson posted 04-03-2024
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Dear ACEL SA Members, Greetings from the ACEL SA team. I was at a conference last week and I heard a leader describe the school year as four 100 metre sprints. It’s a hard to believe we a halfway through the first sprint! Our recent ACEL SA Professionals Network Event and National Conference Launch, held at the Unley Oval Community Hub on Thursday, February 22, saw a fantastic turnout from both our members and non-members with all sectors represented. Featuring an outstanding panel, including Glenn Savage, Pasi Sahlberg, Anne Dunstan, and Dr. Barbara Watterston, the event delved into the theme of 'Reimagining Education,' with an emphasis on reimagining ...
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ACT Branch News: March 2024

By Sandra Darley posted 04-03-2024
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Dear colleagues, I hope that the term has begun well. I am looking forward to the Branch events and initiatives in 2024 that will promote the vision of ACEL as a peak organization committed to growing and nurturing the collective wisdom of educational leaders, of leveraging our individual and collective cross sectoral strengths and of providing opportunities for learning to engender a leadership worldview. To that end on 14 March 2024, at our ACT Awards ceremony which will be held at the Loft, we will esteem the leadership of colleagues from each of our sectors in a number of categories. On behalf of the ACT Branch Executive and members, I wish to express ...
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Message from the President, Term 1 2024

By Briony Scott posted 29-02-2024
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As we begin a new year, there is a sense of renewal and excitement of the possibilities ahead. We work in different branches of education, but the demands, professionally and personally, are demands we have in common. Education is a profession that recognises the need to refuel, restore, and rejuvenate so that growth can happen year to year. For us to thrive, we must honour the ebb and flow. It is a profession that relies on knowing that if you invest in the lives of the young and old, you must invest and take care of yourself. You cannot give what you do not have. It takes time to sit at the feet of experienced people, listen to their words of wisdom, and plant ...
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Message from the CEO, Term 1 2024

By Barbara Watterston posted 29-02-2024
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The excitement and tapestry of possibilities for what the 2024 school year might look like creates a canvas for new beginnings. We are in a moment in time marked by significant global and local challenges and complexities that require all of us who are educators to respond steadily, creatively, and in ways that nourish the human spirit. The theme of reimagining introduced in this first edition of AEL will build throughout the year culminating in our national conference: Reimagining Education: A Future Beyond Boundaries for schooling, educational leadership, our profession, our future. A timely reminder to put Adelaide 30 September – 2 October in your diaries ...
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Message from the CEO, Term 4 2023

By Barbara Watterston posted 29-02-2024
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As our 50th Anniversary draws to a close, it has been an honour to be part of a community of pioneers as well as nextgeners, all contributing vibrantly to conversations, provocations, and celebration! The inspirational history shared through Patron Frank Crowther’s Commemorative Monograph showcased ACEA/ACEL as a deeply human organisation: “it’s in our DNA.” In the monograph I was taken by the vision of the pioneering presidents, with their emphasis on personalised dialogue in addressing key challenges of the day and engaging in professional learning by choice and not imposition. Their message continues to be central to ACEL’s mission and vision, energising ...
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Message from the President, Term 4 2023

By Briony Scott posted 29-02-2024
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Welcome to the final edition of AEL for 2023 – our final nod to our golden jubilee - 50 years since the founding of ACEL. As a result, our focus this year has been on honouring the past, acknowledging and giving thanks for the present, and looking to the future. Fifty years pales into insignificance compared to our country’s Indigenous history. Our first teachers, our first educators, and our first storytellers have set the direction and the tone for our nation – the wisdom around “two-way learning,” listening before speaking, and slowing down to engage in the complexity inherent in any community. Taking the time to honour those who have gone before, and ...
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WA Branch News: February 2024

By Mathilda Joubert posted 06-02-2024
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A Culture of Conversation I hope the new school year is off to a brilliant start in all the different educational institutions where our Western Australian ACEL members serve. Over the holidays I was reflecting on what I value most about my involvement with ACEL WA over the years, and I realised it is the culture of conversation. ACEL has provided me with rich opportunities for deep and meaningful conversations about learning, teaching and leading, often crossing traditional boundaries of role, system, sector, stage or age. These conversations continue to enrich my professional journey, which is why I remain invested in ACEL. As educators we know that ...
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Addressing Eco-Anxiety

By Cameron Paterson posted 06-02-2024
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Our education system faces significant challenges. Young people are signalling their discontent through declining attendance, increasing disruptive behaviour, and concerning levels of mental health issues - tangible expressions of the desire for an educational experience that better resonates with the aspirations and the demands of the contemporary world. The rising numbers of school refusers raises questions about the current curriculum narrative . Over three-quarters of Australian students have reported they didn’t fully try in the latest Pisa tests . ATAR is now not used by more than 75% of our young people. Perhaps not so disconnected, renowned ...
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VIC Branch News: February 2024

By Annette Rome posted 06-02-2024
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Summer breaks are, I believe, for relaxing, reflecting and regrouping. As someone working in school leadership, I find current times challenging in terms of providing hope and optimism for students and staff in a world where environmental pressures and human aggressions spin a web of despair into which it is hard not to get stuck. As educators, we must, however, assist our communities to flourish as best we can, given the circumstances. Wellbeing and happiness, though nebulous, are the subjects of much consideration. A *Harvard Study of Adult Development that commenced in 1938, has established a strong correlation between deep relationships and well-being. ...
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