VIC Branch President - Coralee Pratt

Sue Buckley Lawrence Drysdale Rita Ellul
Melissa Etherton Simon Kent
 Aine Maher
Denis Masseni Toni Elizabeth Meath Warren McLeod
Lauren Sayer Jane Wilkinson

Coralee Pratt - M. Ed, B.Ed, Grad. Dip. Early Childhood Teaching. National Fellow ACEL.

ACEL VIC Branch President

Coralee Pratt is an educational leader who has worked in a diverse range of settings and communities across all regions in Victoria and in Queensland. She currently works for the Victorian Department of Education and Training (DET) in the role of Senior Education Improvement Leader (SEIL) in the Bayside Peninsula Area, South East Victoria Region and works with 30 schools in the Beachside Network. Coralee has been an executive board member of both the ACEL Queensland and Victoria Branches since 2013 and is currently the President of ACEL Victoria.

Coralee has been principal of three large schools and has had broad leadership experience at system level. Participation in the Harvard University Graduate School of Education program enabled Coralee to play an influential role in leading educational change at school and system level and has supported her work in leading the design, delivery and evaluation of a comprehensive suite of professional learning and leadership development programs.

Sue Buckley

Branch Executive Member

Sue Buckley has had an extensive career in education which includes various senior level positions in both policy development and project implementation, in addition to teaching and leadership roles at school and regional levels. She holds the post-graduate qualifications of Executive Master of Public Administration and Master of Education, and has recently graduated from the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Sue's positions include Assistant Deputy Secretary, Strategic Implementation in the Department of Education and Training and General Manager, Teaching and School Leadership at the Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership. Sue is now self-employed at Sue Buckley Consulting, specialising in government and education services.

Lawrence Drysdale

Branch Executive Member

Lawrie Drysdale is an Associate Professor of Education in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne. Lawrie has an extensive career in teaching, human resource development, lecturing and research that spans over forty years. He has a long history of international collaboration where he has been engaged a several successful international projects. He has published extensively in international and local journals, and regularly presents at international conferences in the areas of principal and middle level leadership. He is involved in consultancy work in all school systems.

Rita Ellul

Branch Executive Member

Rita has a wide background in education and has worked in schools, at a regional level and both government and corporate sectors in senior management roles, designing, presenting and evaluating professional learning program for teachers and school principals. Rita has a strong commitment to supporting the development of quality school leadership.

Melissa Etherton

Branch Executive Member

Melissa Etherton is the currently working at Loreto Mandeville Hall Toorak in the position of Administration Manager. Prior to commencing at Loreto Toorak, Melissa held senior leadership roles at Xavier College - Dean of Middle Years at Burke Hall and Methodist Ladies’ College - Director of Professional Services. Melissa has worked extensively in Catholic and Independent schools across Victoria and South Australia. Her broad experiences span many facets of educational leadership: curriculum design, student wellbeing, staff professional learning and college management. Melissa regularly links with Swinburne University’s Department of Education to provide expertise and guidance of pre-service teacher experience in schools and develop two-way partnerships from which Swinburne and schools can benefit. Melissa joined the ACEL Victorian Executive in 2016.

Aine Maher

Branch Executive Member

Aine is the Director, Education Services for Independent Schools Victoria.  Aine works with a team of educators in the design and delivery of professional learning programs to teachers in curriculum planning and design, pedagogy and teacher career development. Her leadership interests include a New Principals’ Program and the design and implementation of customised leadership programs in schools.

Aine has been an executive board member of ACEL Victoria for three years and has chaired the Awards Committee during that time.

Aine is currently a member of the VCAA Early Years – 10 Curriculum and Assessment Committee, the Victorian Curriculum F – 10 Steering Committee, the ACARA Curriculum Directors Group and the AITSL Professional Growth Network.

Denis Masseni

Branch Executive Member

After a 20-year corporate career, Denis entered the education world in 2000 joining Monash University as a sessional lecturer later moving to a full-time position as the inaugural program manager of the Master of Multimedia degree.

In 2008 he founded the web design and communications company ‘sponsor-ed’, quickly becoming one of Australia’s leading developers of school websites.

Denis’ research in school communications has informed his consulting practice through programs such as ‘PR for Principals: Managing the vibe’ and ‘Schools and Digital marketing’.

Toni Elizabeth Meath

Branch Executive Member

As an educational leader, Toni Meath is passionate about the importance of using critical thinking and problem solving in student centred pedagogical approaches as ways to prepare students for success in their future world. Toni believes in the important role of students and teachers in leading school transformation and is a strong believer in their collective capacity to drive change. Her portfolio across all schools has been one of leading a strong performance and development culture.

Toni is Principal of The Mac.Robertson Girls’ High School, a member of The Victorian Select Entry Schools Network, The Inner City Network of Secondary Colleges, The Alliance of Girls’ Schools Network, The Victorian Association of State Secondary Girls’ Schools, Victorian Association of Secondary School Principals (VASSP) and The Invergowrie Foundation.

Warren McLeod

Branch Executive Member

Warren has worked across the Catholic and Independent sectors for the past 20 years and has held a variety of Leadership positions in each of these settings. His current position is Head of Senior School at Beaconhills College, a large Independent school in the South Eastern Suburbs of Melbourne. Throughout his time in education, Warren has developed a passion for staff engagement and development. In particular the mentoring and coaching of the next generation of educational leaders, an area he sees as a vital cog in the development of education in Australia.

Lauren Sayer

Branch Executive Member

Lauren has extensive global expertise in the education sector having worked on innovative projects with schools, businesses and educational organisations across the UK, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia; developing partnerships with educational bodies to successfully implement change. Her expertise lies in professional coaching and support around teacher and innovative educational change.

Lauren currently leads digital innovation at Haileybury. In this role Lauren leads and collaborates across Haileybury enabling teachers to embrace digital technologies in their professional practice and to use them confidently within the classroom to enhance both teacher professional practice and enhanced student learning. Lauren also is an Education Collaborator with the PWC 21st Century Minds Accelerator Program which is designed to unearth, grow and scales Australia’s best STEM education focused initiatives.

Jane Wilkinson

Branch Executive Member

Jane Wilkinson is Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at Monash University and Associate Dean, Graduate Research, Faculty of Education. She is internationally recognised for her research in the area of leadership for social justice, with over 90 publications on this topic. Jane has conducted extensive research with principals and schools in regional Queensland, Sydney, rural New South Wales, ACT and Melbourne on: leading change in schools and educational districts; refugee education in schools and universities and the role of schools in building social cohesion. Jane has worked with a range of funding bodies including Uniting Church, NSW, the Victorian Primary Principals’ Association, Federal Government’s Office of Learning and Teaching, Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet and Bastow Institute of Educational Leadership, Victoria.

For three years, Jane co-led the Unlocking Potential: Principal Preparation Program for aspirant principals in the Department of Education and Training, Victoria, one of the largest principal preparation programs in Australia. Currently Jane is lead investigator of a research study entitled Leading for social cohesion: How principals respond to “challenging conversations” about social and political volatilities and disharmonies. They study examines the role of principals and schools in building social cohesion in these socially and politically volatile times. Jane is a former Assistant Principal of a large rural Victorian secondary school.

Simon Kent

Branch Executive Member

Simon Kent is a Public Policy Fellow in the Chancellery at the University of Melbourne. Prior to this Simon was a Deputy Secretary in the Victorian Department of Education and Training for six years with responsibility variously for policy, strategy, performance, evaluation, planning, and delivery, across all education, training and developmental life stages. His six years in the education department followed eight years in the Social Policy Branch of the Department of Premier and Cabinet (DPC).

Simon has extensive experience in policymaking across the education, human services, health and justice portfolios. He has developed good public policy in complex and contested interdepartmental and intergovernmental contexts, and uses multi-disciplinary analysis to develop policy.

Simon commenced his career in higher education advocacy and political advisory roles, then expanded to include schools policy while in the Federal Parliament before joining DPC, including work on reform of vocational education and early childhood development. He holds a Bachelor of Arts and an Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG) Executive Master of Public Administration from the University of Melbourne. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration Australia (Victoria), and a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD). He is Chair of the ANZSOG Alumni Advisory Council and a Non-Executive Director of The Front Project.