Breakout Sessions

Presenters:  Eastern Fleurieu R-12 School

Description:  Moving beyond surface-level adoption of the SA Curriculum, EFS has led a deliberate paradigm shift to embed capabilities and dispositions as core business in teaching and learning. This session explores how we built collective agency, challenged existing assumptions, and leveraged prior curriculum and pedagogical work to achieve coherence and depth. We will outline the leadership moves, structures and strategies that drove change, and reflect on what it takes to sustain momentum in a complex school environment.

Presenters:  Port Lincoln High School

Description: At PLHS, ‘Crew’ has fundamentally redefined school culture and practice. Crew serves as the central vehicle for enacting the Department for Education’s strategy at our site, providing a consistent framework through which staff and students engage with whole-school priorities. Recent work has demonstrated that Crew not only strengthens alignment across our teams and classrooms, but also actively drives improvement in student engagement, wellbeing, and learning outcomes. Through regular Crew sessions, we have seen heightened collaboration among staff and a stronger sense of belonging for our students, enabling a collective focus on achievement and growth.

Presenters: The Hospital School

Description: Schools are increasingly supporting young people experiencing significant mental health distress, emotional dysregulation, school refusal, self-harm, suicidality, anxiety, neurodiversity, and complex psychosocial challenges. This session draws on current South Australian child and adolescent mental health data, alongside the lived realities emerging through emergency mental health presentations, inpatient admissions, and school collaboration.

Led through the lens of the Supporting Improved Mental Health in Schools (SIMHS) framework, the session will explore how Hospital School SA works alongside schools, CAMHS, emergency mental health, inpatient services, families, and community teams to support continuity of learning, belonging, regulation, and re-engagement during periods of significant mental health challenge.

Participants will gain insight into referral pathways, emergency mental health presentations, admissions, discharge planning, support planning, and collaborative reintegration approaches. The presentation will also explore the themes schools commonly raise when seeking support, including risk, safety, attendance, behaviour, communication, gender diversity, self-harm, and complex student needs.

Using real examples, data, and provocations from practice, the session will invite educational leaders to reflect on how schools create environments where young people feel safe enough to communicate distress, remain connected to learning, and access support without losing belonging. The session will challenge participants to consider how relational safety, co-regulation, language, flexibility, and collaboration influence a young person’s ability to engage, regulate, and recover.

Presenters:  Seaton High School

Description:  This workshop explores Seaton High Schools whole site change process reconceptulising our approach to evidencing, assessing, reporting and celebrating capabilities and dispositions within the SACE and South Australian Curriculum. Participants will see how Thriving Learner Constellations support a consistent, school-wide approach to celebrating growth and achievement holistically in line with our site, system and community values.

Presenters:  Morialta Secondary College

Description:  This breakout explores how Morialta Secondary College moved from community consultation to classroom practice. Grounded in the development of our Years 7–12 pathways and Curriculum Guiding Principles – Empower Aspiration, Provide Personalised Pathways, Nurture Capabilities, and Connect Learning Beyond the Classroom – the session examines how community voice informed the design of curriculum pathways and learning.

In partnership with Glen Savage, this work evolved into a strategic opportunity for disciplined inquiry. Through a professional learning community of early-adopter teachers and leaders, a structured cycle of inquiry placed student agency and capabilities at the centre of pedagogy, learning and assessment.

The session explores the role of teacher agency and collective efficacy in shaping classroom practice, and shares how disciplined experimentation is influencing learning design, student engagement, and the quality of student work at MSC.

Presenters:  Karoonda Area School

Description:  This year our school was part of the Learning Expedition pilot with DfE. Students in Year 7 and 9 spent their English, Science and some Maths lessons connecting the issue with the drought with their learning in a very authentic way. This approach will be used across our school in 2026 and provides agency for all students, regardless of ability.

Presenters:  Glenunga International High School

Description:  Glenunga has been lucky enough to be working with the University of Melbourne’s New Metrics’ team to robustly validate capabilities in Year 7-11 as well as piloting the SACE Thrive capabilities. As part of this journey we have rethought learning design, our pedagogical practices and our approach to assessment using student and teacher agency.

Presenters: Brent Bloffwitch & Rebecca Bolton

Description: In today’s media-saturated environment school leaders are increasingly required to lead under heightened public scrutiny while continuing to protect learning, wellbeing and community trust. This session explores how principals and leaders can navigate heightened visibility and media attention in ways that are values-led, relational and sustainable. Rather than focusing on media management tactics, the presentation centres on leadership presence – how kindness, humility and humour can be powerful tools for maintaining calm, credibility and connection during challenging times.

Drawing on lived experience, the session examines the impact of public scrutiny on school culture, staff wellbeing and community confidence, and highlights the role of leaders in setting the emotional tone for their schools. Participants will be invited to reflect on their own leadership identity under pressure and consider values-aligned approaches to supporting staff, students and families when narratives are shaped beyond their control.

Presenters: Blackwood High School

Description: Since the widespread availability of generative AI tools, the educational landscape has fundamentally shifted. At Blackwood High School, we have started a whole-site transformation looking towards ‘future learning’, with AI resilience front of mind. This session will explore the practical strategies and approaches we have developed to help reduce teachers and leaders doing the additional job of being “AI Detective.” Instead, we will share how we have used learning design, assessment and moderation to create conditions for learning that empower students to achieve excellence and engage in deep learning, without offloading thinking to an artificial intelligence.

Presenters:  Willunga High School

Description:  Willunga HS has been on a journey to provide an inclusive and high impact school experience for every student. Tying together high impact teaching strategies with trauma informed practises and inclusive education innovation have had a significant impact on student engagement, belonging and achievement. The collective agency of our staff have made this possible

Presenters:  Flinders University – Education Pathways team

Description:  Immersive breakout session for school leaders to reimage their partnership with Higher Education. Understand how Flinders University can partner with your school to send signals to your school community that Higher Education can value content and capabilities equally to create a line of sigh from SA Curriculum to SACE to Higher Education. This breakout session will include conversations around alternative entrance pathways to university beyond ATAR, reimaging Extension Studies, update on Degree Based Apprenticeships and insights on key innovations that Flinders in currently working on to achieve equitable excellence in bridging the gap between SACE/IB and Higher Education.

Presenters: Australian Science & Mathematics School

Description:  Who has agency at your site, how is it distributed and what are the limits? This session will challenge delegates to consider how well their school ecosystem supports equitable agency for all. We will unpack examples of agency within student, teacher and support staff cohorts. Delegates will have opportunities for discussion of the constraints on and benefits of fostering broader agency within their own context.