“How are our systems identifying and supporting emerging leaders in a time of change?”

The demands on our leaders are ever growing, and many exceptional educators are questioning the sustainability of school leadership roles, especially in our most complex and challenging school contexts. Our schooling systems are recognising this, and considering and implementing a range of policies and strategies to identify, cultivate and support our future generations of leaders.

In doing so, we are seeking to change and adapt our understanding and approach to leadership to be more connected (at a local and systemic level) and diverse, with an increasing focus on emotional intelligence, leadership of teaching, learning and wellbeing, and empowerment of middle leaders across our schooling systems.

In this context, it is increasingly critical that we recognise and treat leadership development and progression as a continuum, not an end state. However, our systems and operating models don’t always recognise this.

This session will explore recent policy developments across Australia and internationally with regards to how systems are thinking about and supporting education leaders, outlining common themes and opportunities for systems to better support our education leaders now and into the future.

WILL GORT

Will Gort is a professional economist and Director at Deloitte Access Economics.

He specialises in school education policy, with a focus on measuring and implementing strategies to drive system-wide improvement in outcomes. Will has a particular interest in school funding model design and evaluation, as well as issues of workforce reform.

With almost a decade of work in public policy design and evaluation, he supports government and non-government schooling sectors across Australia to design, implement and evaluate policies designed to empower leaders and educators to drive improvements in outcomes.

Will has a particular interest in organisational design and system-wide approaches to cultivate and empower educational leaders. He has worked on the design and evaluation of a number of policies relating to place-based regional operating models and is currently working closely with the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership to evaluate major programs intended to support the status of the teaching profession. Will regularly collaborates with local and international experts, in particular with Michael Fullan.

As part of his participation in this year’s conference, Will is hoping to share his insights into how systems are thinking about educational leadership and how this is expected to evolve into the future.