The following is a Message from the AEL Journal Volume 47 Issue 4
Together, as leaders in our profession, we find ourselves at a remarkable inflection point in Australian education, a moment where the challenges we face are matched only by the unprecedented opportunities before us. In this edition of the Australian Educational Leader, we consider the purpose and meaning of schools. How will we lead our school communities with authentic, experiential and lifelong learning at the forefront? What will be our actions as leaders that place value on positive and productive relationships, learning alongside AI and ensuring ethical leadership in education? These are questions worthy of consideration for any educational system and sector.
We are navigating what the University of Sydney’s 2025 Skills Horizon Report (Peter et al., 2025) characterises as a “decade of disorientation,” a period where educational leaders must simultaneously respect enduring values while preparing learners for futures we can scarcely envision. The recently released 2025 Skills Horizon Report references five important shifts, those that, as leaders we need to know so that we can lead through them. In considering these five shifts: the values shift; the technology shift; the accountability shift; the trust shift; and the energy shift, we can be encouraged by the articles published in this issue that reflect conversations taking place across our sector. These articles reflect a contribution to our collective understanding of the traits and habits for steady and successful leadership that will enable us to sit with ambiguity and commit to a course of action.
One fundamental question facing educational leaders today is not simply “How well are our students performing?” but rather “How are we preparing young people to be brilliant humans in an uncertain world?” This shift, from performance metrics to human flourishing, represents more than rhetorical repositioning. As Martin Westwell, Chief Executive of South Australia’s Department for Education, articulates in a recent podcast it demands that we establish clear settlements on what we jointly hold ourselves responsible for, moving to educational paradigms infused with heart and humanity. This is a future in which purpose driven education systems refuse to be constrained by data driven compliance; rather emphasis is placed on a shared commitment with humanity at the centre of educational transformation.
Learning Creates Australia (2023) reinforces this imperative, encouraging us not to narrow our definition of success to what can be easily measured and ranked. The movement toward broader recognition of learning, encompassing knowledge, skills, dispositions and agency challenges us to fundamentally reimagine what we value and how we demonstrate that our students are thriving. These messages were echoed throughout keynotes, conversations and concurrent sessions during our recent ACEL National Conference.
How will we ensure that authentic, experiential and lifelong learning is the lived reality of our schools? As leaders, this will involve the capability to engage productively with futures that are inherently unknown as well as the ability to create learning environments where young people develop not just content knowledge but the capacity to learn, unlearn, and relearn throughout their lives.
This cannot happen without parallel transformation in how we as educators engage in continuous growth and our own professional learning. Trust based professional collaboration, coaching and educator-centred approaches to school change provide the scaffold for the kind of organisational learning that makes authentic student learning possible.
Throughout this issue, contributors explore what it means to lead with what Michael Fullan (2021) terms the “human paradigm.” This is leadership that recognises teaching and learning as fundamentally relational acts and leadership that seeks to understand how the brain’s social systems can help us build responsive and adaptive educational communities. These insights are imperative when we recognise that positive and productive relationships are the very foundation upon which the learning culture of a school is meaningfully built.
There is no doubt that AI fluency is essential for successful leadership. Our role is to ensure it serves fundamentally human purposes in asking the question, “how will we leverage AI’s possibilities while enhancing the distinctively human capacities for creativity, empathy, ethical reasoning and collaborative problem-solving?”
Finally, this issue explores how educational leaders can maintain ethical clarity amid complexity. Ethical leadership is a type of leadership that confronts uncomfortable truths about systemic inequity. It is a rejection of standardised compliance in favour of contextual accountability that honours professional judgment while maintaining shared responsibility for every learner’s success.
As a community of educational leaders we refuse to accept that the future is simply something that happens to us. Instead, and as demonstrated in this issue of AEL, our contributors model how we might actively shape learning systems worthy of the young Australians we serve. These are systems characterised by purpose, humanity, continuous learning, responsive relationships, technological wisdom, and unwavering ethical commitment.
In closing our National Conference we referred to ACEL not as a collection of words, an acronym or title, but rather a place. We will continue to have clarity in purpose and intention which will unequivocally position us as “the” association for the profession in Australia. The Australian Council for Educational Leaders is a place of rigour in dialogue, advocacy, and professional learning; a place to which all of us can belong and can contribute. Leading in our place is not without challenge, but it has never been more important. We trust that this issue offers both challenge and inspiration for the journey.
References
Fullan, M. (2021). The right drivers for whole system success. CSE Leading Education Series 01. Centre for Strategic Education, Melbourne.
Learning Creates Australia. (2023, December 23). Learning beyond limits. https://www.learningcreates.org.au/portfolio/report-learning-beyondlimits/
Peter, S., Reimer, K., & Norman, P. (2025). The 2025 skills horizon: What leaders need to know next. Sydney Executive Plus. The University of Sydney. https://plus.sydney.edu.au/horizon
Westwell, M. (Interviewee), & Atkinson, D. (Host). (2025.) Episode 1: Shaping the future – SA education achievements and priorities [Audio podcast episode]. In Department of Education South Australia. https://www.education.sa.gov.au/schools-and-educators/curriculum-and-teaching/teach-podcast/podcasts/shaping-the-future-sa-education-achievementsand-priorities-with-professor-martin-westwell