Ballroom 2 + 3

Ballroom 2 + 3

Ballroom 2 + 3

Ballroom 2 + 3

Ballroom 2 + 3

Deborah Dunstone has been Assistant Director-General, State Schools - Disability and Inclusion in the Department of Education since 2017, when she took on the challenge of leading the whole-of-agency response to the Queensland Disability Review.

Her leadership is hallmarked by her willingness to confront barriers to change, encouraging people to ask difficult questions and working with them to co-design innovative, evidence-based solutions. Queensland’s Inclusive Education policy is recognised nationally and internationally – its success is about policy and practice being led at a system level to support school improvement.

LEARN MORE

Ballroom 2 + 3

Mindshifts toward Meaningful Inclusions

School leaders and teachers are keenly aware of the sweeping variety of learning needs students bring to classrooms daily. We also have ample evidence that sorting students according to their perceived needs is more harmful than helpful to many students in both the shorter and longer terms. Further, many schools have invested significantly in professional development to support inclusive classrooms. Still, practices in many classrooms bear scant resemblance to visions of places in which a broad range of students not only gather together but also learn well together. Movement toward meaningful differentiation will not likely occur as a result of modest or even moderate change initiatives. Rather, it will happen when leaders and teachers work together to fundamentally modify educators’ beliefs as well as support for acting on those beliefs. This keynote will address several foundational mindshifts that are essential in establishing and maintaining truly inclusive communities of learners.

LEARN MORE

Ballroom Foyer

Inclusion: Dissolving Barriers and Borders for Educators
Ballroom 1
Dr Moya O'Brien, Deirdre MacIntyre
Institute of Child Education and Psychology (ICEP) Europe

Know Better, Do Better - School discipline, disability and behaviour
Ballroom 2 + 3
Vicky Booth, Natalie Swayn
Department of Education, QLD

Language, culture, understanding: Using digital play to motivate language learning.
Bastille Room
Amanda Macdonald
Education Services Australia, VIC

Trauma informed pedagogies
Concorde Room
Dr Anne Southall
Latrobe University, VIC

Leading Schools in an Inclusive World
Ballroom 2 + 3
Racquel Gibbons, Christopher Thomas, Diana Boulter
Department of Education, QLD

Hearts and Minds; growing inclusive culture in North Queensland schools
Ballroom 1
Bronwyn Reguson
Department of Education, QLD

Collaboration for Effective Inclusion: What does it really take?
Bastille Room
Dr Lisa Bridle
Community Resource Unit Ltd, QLD

A 'Whole-School' Approach to Understanding and Managing Anxiety
Concorde Room
Dr Claire Hayes
Consultant Clinical Psychologist, QLD

Ballroom Foyer

Ballroom 2 + 3

Ben Gauntlett commenced his term as Disability Discrimination Commissioner on May 7, 2019. Ben is a quadriplegic following a schoolboy rugby union accident aged 16 in Perth, Western Australia. He has the experience of a person living with a disability and accessing care in Australia (Western Australia, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory), the United Kingdom and the United States of America. He will be a participant in the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Prior to commencing as Disability Discrimination Commissioner, Ben worked as a barrister in Western Australia and Victoria with a broad ranging practice. He has also worked as an associate to the Honourable Justice Kenneth Hayne AC at the High Court of Australia, as Counsel Assisting the Solicitor-General of the Commonwealth and taught law in Australia and the United Kingdom.

LEARN MORE

Ballroom Foyer

Ballroom 2 + 3

Ethical Leadership for Inclusive Schools

In recent years the Australian media has drawn attention to concerns about the school experiences of students with disabilities. This attention leads us to consider the key role that school leaders have in developing and sustaining inclusion in their schools. Focusing on ethical leadership and the development of an inclusive school culture, I will first discuss legal and policy imperatives in Australia. Second, I will turn our attention to ethical leadership theory, highlighting the work of writers such as Starratt (2012, 2014). We will consider ethics of care, justice, critique and community. Third, I will highlight the important consideration of school leaders’ and teachers’ beliefs and values influencing interactions among school community members and the school’s practices.

I will emphasise that for long-term improvements, school leaders need to resist the urge to implement practices leading to rapid improvement and focus more on “slow schooling”. The focus will be on leading school staff in deep and complex thinking and planning to find whole school approaches to support learning for all students. Fourth, I will offer practical ideas and questions for school leaders to consider in their work with teachers, parents, and students. I will present several dilemmas school leaders may wish to use in professional development to stimulate reflection and deliberation about inclusion within their schools.

LEARN MORE

Ballroom Foyer

Ballroom 2 + 3

Deborah Dunstone has been Assistant Director-General, State Schools - Disability and Inclusion in the Department of Education since 2017, when she took on the challenge of leading the whole-of-agency response to the Queensland Disability Review.

Her leadership is hallmarked by her willingness to confront barriers to change, encouraging people to ask difficult questions and working with them to co-design innovative, evidence-based solutions. Queensland’s Inclusive Education policy is recognised nationally and internationally – its success is about policy and practice being led at a system level to support school improvement.

LEARN MORE

Ballroom 2 + 3

Tony Cook PSM is the Director-General of the Department of Education. Before joining the department in April 2018, Tony worked for six years in the Australian public service as the Associate Secretary for Schools and Youth within the Department of Education and Training.

Tony has held several senior executive positions in the Victorian public service, including Deputy Secretary, Government and Corporate with the Department of Premier and Cabinet; Deputy Secretary, Office for Children and Portfolio Coordination; and Deputy Secretary, Office for Planning, Strategy and Coordination within the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. He began his career with Education Queensland.

LEARN MORE

Ballroom 2 + 3

Looking back and looking forward – Disability and Inclusion in Queensland State schools

Deb Dunstone will share the Queensland journey around Inclusive Education following the Queensland Disability Review in 2017. Leading through school improvement and capability development has been a powerful way to ensure every student is able to attend their local school, access the curriculum, learn in a safe supportive environment and achieve academically. Reflecting on our journey provides us with an opportunity to consider next steps as we work towards ensuring a life of choice not chance for all students.

LEARN MORE

Ballroom 2 + 3

Community of Practise: Working with families, educators and service providers to ensure that every child have every opportunity, every day regardless of postcode or ability’

Community of Practise: Working with families, educators and service providers to ensure that every child have every opportunity, every day regardless of postcode or ability.

As Leonie, I wear many hats every day. I have the following labels:

• Deaf and proud to be
• I wear cochlear implants
• Mum of two beautiful kids, one of them happens to be deaf
• Passionate advocate for deaf people
• Educator – taught over 600 deaf people from preschool to adult education
• CEO of the Deaf Society – a service provider
• Community leader
• Solution maker
• Full of good ideas
• Visionary

Therefore, talking about community of practise and why it is important that we create a community of practice to create an exciting journey in the world of a child with a disability and their family is a passion of mine.

I have always lived by the mantra that it takes a village to raise a child. I am a product of my village which includes many wonderful people that I am very fortunate to have in my life to date. My village consists of the extended family, family friends, teachers and many professionals and experts. As I had a wonderful upbringing, it is my goal in life to create the same for not only my sons but also their friends and many other deaf children and their families that I have crossed paths with.

My presentation will provide examples of how we together can create a community of practice for each child with a disability and authentically provide an inclusive village for them to grow up in. Creating a community of practise is not easy and can be quite challenging and difficult for families to manage but with appropriate framework based on my observations during the past 25 years working in this sector, I will share some insights and tips for professionals and families to work together to create a wonderful village to raise our children in.

LEARN MORE

Ballroom Foyer

OrCam Literacy Support Wearable Trial in Queensland State Schools
Ballroom 2 + 3
Jeff Souter
Statewide Services, Disability and Inclusion Branch, State Schools, QLD

Leading Inclusive Education
Ballroom 1
Kelly Jeppesen, Juliane Lewis, Lynette Griffiths
Dakabin State School, QLD

Time efficient strategies to support students with learning disabilities
Bastille Room
Jemima Hutton
Dyslexia Demystified, QLD

Strengthening School and Community Relationships through Engagement and Co-design
Concorde Room
Bob Smith
State Schools Indigenous Education, Department of Education, QLD

Ballroom Foyer

Ballroom 2 + 3

Ballroom 2 + 3

Changing Mindsets: Four Key Questions for Implementing Multi-Tiered Systems of Support

Implementing new initiatives in schools is challenging. School leaders must ask and answer critical questions about their schools- is this initiative worthwhile? Do we have the capacity to implement a new initiative and implement it well? What is a realistic timeline for implementation? To further the complexity, education leaders are barraged with ‘the new,’ ‘the shiny’, or ‘the silver bullet’ to cure all of their schools’ needs. But what if the new initiative stepped back from any individual intervention and considered how the school functions as a whole? Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) are designed to evaluate current practices, determine the need for new practices and keep what works and discard what does not. This decision-making process makes meeting the needs of all learners the number one priority. It moves schools and school systems from a binary perspective of ability versus disability to a continuum of supports that categorizes students by their particular needs to be successful. Educational leaders will be guided through successful implementation of MTSS using these four questions:

• What are predictable difficulties?
• What interventions can we use to prevent these predictable difficulties?
• How will these interventions be implemented consistently and with fidelity?
• How will we know if the interventions are working?

This process gives a voice to all stakeholders through a team-based approach, uses proactive, prevention-based strategies, creates a common language and vision of success and most importantly focuses on meeting the needs of all learners.

LEARN MORE

Ballroom 2 + 3