
Create your personal agenda –check the favourite icon
Audience takeaways:
· Empower Student Agency– Learn strategies to help students lead their own character growth.
· Foster Empathy & Connection– Discover ways to guide students in expressing perspectives that build community.
· Strengthen Confidence & Moral Courage– Understand how student voice reinforces integrity and self-belief.
· Promote Reflective, Purposeful Action– Gain tools to help students use their voice to make thoughtful wellbeing choices.
Too many students are overwhelmed before they’ve even begun learning. This session explores how educators can reduce cognitive overload, create learning ease to motivation and build rapid expertise through cognitive velocity Blending cognitive science, instructional design, and strength-based education, this i a practical and powerful session for schools.
This session is for -Classroom teachers (Years 3–12, Learning support staff,Curriculum and instructional leaders, School wellbeing and leadership teams
By the end of this session, participants will:
Ways to engage K - 2 learners through technology with examples of bee bots and indi spheros.
What if every voice in your school community could genuinely shape improvement initiatives? What if collaboration moved beyond tokenistic consultation to become a powerful driver of meaningful change?
This group of 6 round table dialogues invites participants into exploration of co-production as a transformative approach to school improvement planning. Through carefully crafted provocations and peer to peer sharing, participants will deliberate and reflect on key messages from research as they make connections and share their own experiences in designing, developing, creating and implementing a school’s annual improvement plan.
We examine how one principal's practice of leading with the social brain in mind transforms stakeholder engagement from silent participation to authentic co-production.
Our case study demonstrates how understanding the social and cognitive complexities of collaboration enables adaptive processes that honour context rather than impose rigid frameworks. This principal's deliberate practice shows how research-informed leadership can empower all stakeholders - from teachers to students to community members - as genuine change-makers within their unique school environment.
Our facilitated dialogue will explore provocations around:
Schools as complex and sophisticated organisations
Social and cognitive complexity of collaboration – what gets derailed in your context and why
Differentiated relationships and cultures grounded in trust
Silo Mentality as a construct of function, knowledge and experience – mechanisms of self-protection from the metaphorical avalanches, hijacking and tsunamis
Determining what is reasonable in the time available – competing tensions and multiplying demands
Creating adaptive pathways that work – for whom, when and how
Each table becomes a microcosm of co-production itself, where participants' diverse experiences illuminate new possibilities. By weaving together this compelling example of social brain-informed leadership with the collective wisdom of educators from across Australian contexts, we'll discover how adaptive practices can fit within each unique setting.
Join fellow educators as we forge connections that acknowledge the true nature of collaborative work while harnessing its potential to drive meaningful change across Australian schools.
Audience takeaways:
Exploring the power of student-led projects to reimagine teaching and learning.
Scholastic esports can be as legitimate and valuable as traditional sports when delivered with clear structure and purpose
Well-designed esports programs support student wellbeing, increase engagement and strengthen school connection
Esports fosters important character traits like teamwork, resilience, leadership and responsibility
A successful esports program needs strategic planning, educational alignment, and strong industry partnerships
Esports can play a key role in modern schooling, shaping school culture, boosting retention and supporting future-ready skills
This ConnectED round-table session will support educators to step beyond headline conversations about AI and move into practical, peer-informed approaches to assessment design in AI-enabled learning environments.
Participants will engage in a facilitated, solutions-focused discussion centred on questions such as:
Through shared examples, challenges, and strategies, attendees will:
The session will be conversational and participant-led, reflecting the unconference model. Attendees will leave with practical strategies, reflective questions, and design principles they can apply immediately within their own classroom, team, or institution.
This interactive show-and-tell session highlights engaging K–12 cybersecurity resources that make digital safety and cyber skills accessible and age-appropriate. Participants will explore practical tools, games, and hands-on activities that bring cybersecurity concepts to life in the classroom. I will also share key learnings from the 2025 NICE K–12 Cybersecurity Education Conference (USA) and how these insights can be applied in Australian schools.
Trust is becoming a clear enabler and barrier to educators, students, and institutions engaging with generative AI. Do we trust that the AI tools used in education will be pedagogically meaningful? Can teachers trust that students will benefit from their use? How do we trust that edtech designers and providers are driven by the interests of educators and students? In this session, we will explore a cross-sector collaboration between the Catholic Education Network of Australia and the University of Sydney driven by a shared belief that teachers should be drivers, not passengers, in the AI journey. We will discuss the ups and downs of working across sectors on a common AI platform that now reaches over 300 institutions and 150,000 students, and the lessons learnt around breaking barriers, bringing educators on board, and shared values.
Do's and don'ts at each stage of the third-party management lifecycle
Contractual safeguards and governance essentials
Common third-party risk management mistakes and how to avoid them
Risk-tiered assessment frameworks for resource-constrained teams
Essential vendor vetting practices
Part of the free resources for teachers showcase
Part of the free resources for teachers showcase
In October 2024, CEnet launched cechat — a purpose-built AI platform for Catholic education. Seventeen months later, it is Australia's only national AI project that places students and staff side by side on the same platform, at scale. Embedded within 370 institutions, with 2500+ purpose-built agents, and 118,000+ conversations logged, the data set is rich and the lessons are real.
This session shares what worked, what surprised us, and what we'd do differently. It features a short walk through of the hard-won insights from designing, deploying, and governing AI across organisations spanning metropolitan, regional, and remote communities in Australia.Key lessons explored include: why curriculum alignment determines whether AI tools get used; why hierarchical governance (HQ → diocese → school → classroom) was non-negotiable for earning trust with parents and regulators; what happens when students actually use AI in a walled garden with real-time content flagging and escalation pathways; and why the platform that wins isn't always the most complex, it's the one educators trust enough to put in front of children.
This is not a product pitch. It's a frank account of building the only national AI platform where a Year 5 student practising narrative writing and a principal assessing excursion risk are on the same system, governed by the same framework, and supported by the same architecture.
Part of the free resources for teachers showcase
Practical ideas you can use tomorrowExposure to a broad toolkit, not just the usual suspectsStrategies to match tools with teaching goalsConfidence to experiment without being overwhelmedA curated shortlist to explore further
In this session, the NSW Department of Education STEM Enrichment team explores the strategic importance of Net Zero education and demonstrates how game-based learning supports systems thinking, collaboration and real-world problem solving. Participants will experience a guided tour of the Minecraft world, followed by insights from UNICEF Australia, linking climate learning to children’s rights and global citizenship.
Audience takeaways
Create your personal agenda –check the favourite icon
In a fast-paced, interconnected environment, global events impact on student's engagement with learning in many ways. Human rights provide a system of universal values that support connection and inclusion in the classroom. This session outlines ways in which the values of freedom, equality and human dignity can be explored in educational settings. Feedback from our human rights leadership forums demonstrates that students are keen to apply these concepts and skills in the school setting.
This session invites participants to reflect on the changing nature of leadership in schools and systems, exploring the award-winning work of theLearning Commission, with commission schools and colleges now in place across the Northern Territory, ACT and Tasmania representing over 35,000 learners. John and Jess will explore what innovation in leadership means in contemporary education, how research-informed practice is mobilisedby leaders to drive improvement and the role of partnerships between policy makers, school leaders, educators and students in leading change.
Students with neurodiversity include students who are gifted, those who are oppositional or have dyslexia, or experience attention issues such as ADHD, or have experienced trauma as well as those who are on the spectrums. Each of these groups have strengths as well as vulnerabilities that can be catered for. Teachers are equipped with strategies as well as the most recent tech that overcomes learning disadvantages for neurodiverse students.
Links directly with Andrew’s books Neuroadvantage- The Strengths based approach to Neurodiversity, Unlocking Your Child’s Genius and Neurodevelopmental Differentiation- Optimising brain systems to maximise learning.
This session is for educators and leaders looking to understand and discuss the complexities – and opportunities – of teaching AI concepts to students. Emphasizing a child-first approach, participants will learn how to build AI literacy while promoting creativity and critical thinking through hands-on learning.
Attendees will be inspired to empower their students to navigate the AI landscape responsibly and with curiosity.
Bilaarr Ai is reshaping how educators embed First Nations perspectives with confidence, cultural safety, and integrity. Built on community guidance, ICIP protections, and strong cultural governance, she offers teachers authentic curriculum-aligned support while honouring data sovereignty and First Nations voices.
This session will explore how a culture-led AI system like Bilaarr Ai can strengthen teaching practice, uplift First Nations knowledge in the classroom, and show what safe, community-driven AI looks like for the future of education.
Boost Brain Power: Use "unplugged" coding to strengthen Executive Functions—helping students develop the planning, focus, and self-control needed for every subject.
Make Thinking Tangible: Transition from screen-based learning to physical computing to help students "materialize" abstract concepts and see how logic works in the real world.
Ignite Lifelong Passion: Start hands-on science early to build "STEM confidence" in every student, ensuring they see themselves as capable scientists before they leave primary school.
Construct Social Skills: Use physical builds and robotics to teach Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), fostering the communication, resilience, and teamwork required for the 21st-century workplace.
This presentation explores how students perceive of their emotions within an asynchronous forum and how this relates to social learning behaviours. We live in a world where earning and learning is rapidly moving online, we know there is increase in flexible and online learning at university and professionally. Plus asynchronous engagement is the foundation for online learning design. Currently, there are more studies focused on achievement outcomes and engaging with course content, with very few studies focus on the learning behaviours related to student’s emotions as they engage in asynchronous forums. This research is important because:
1. There is little to no research from the perspective of student's emotions and how these influence learning behaviours asynchronously;
2. We need to know about the emotional perspectives of a learner coming to an asynchronous (open) forum
3. The study identifies three typologies representing social emotional learning action.
When a lesson doesn’t go to plan, teachers are often left wondering what went wrong and how to fix it. This session explores how AI can be used as a practical reflective tool to unpack those “pear-shaped” lessons in real time. By aligning reflections with the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers, AI can help identify gaps in engagement, differentiation, and clarity, giving teachers a starting point for meaningful improvement. This isn’t about replacing professional judgement—it’s about supporting it, turning AI into a coaching partner that helps make sense of the moments when teaching feels most uncertain.
A narrative on empowering learners to innovate, lead and showcase their knowledge.
You will learn how to:
Part of the free resources for teachers showcase
Part of the free resources for teachers showcase
How to lead digital change with clarity—from decision-making to rollout
Practical ways to secure staff buy-in and sustain engagementWhat effective implementation looks like across diverse school contexts
Key challenges schools face—and how to navigate them proactively
How to align resourcing, training, and timelines for long-term success
Part of the free resources for teachers showcase
1. Refugee Students Face Complex Layers of Disruption2. Language Learning Takes Time and Support3. Schools Must Adopt a Holistic and Flexible Approach4. Cultural Adjustment and Family Dynamics Add Extra Pressure5. Education Remains Central to Hope and Identity
This roundtable session builds on research conducted at The Lakes College and published in ReConnectEd (The Australian Council for Student Voice): First Steps Matter: A case study for schools beginning their journey towards Student Voice and Partnership. In this roundtable, participants will engage directly with the study’s key insights through collaborative discussion and applied activities. Together, we will examine what students identify as the enablers of meaningful partnership, analyse real examples from The Lakes College’s partnership framework, and explore practical strategies for moving from consultation to co-creation. Attendees will also co-develop actionable next steps tailored to their own school contexts. The session concludes by synthesising the first steps that matter most, the common pitfalls that stall momentum, and the organisational conditions that enable student agency and partnership to become embedded, consistent, and resilient rather than episodic.
Student co-design is practical, not just philosophical.ABC operationalises student partnership by offering curated, outcome-aligned evidence pathways rather than ad hoc concessions.
Equivalence is engineered, not assumed.One rubric mapped to learning outcomes plus enforced Bloom’s coverage means different formats are comparable, auditable, and TEQSA-ready.
Real workload gains, conservatively estimated.After a one-off setup, expect a 30–40% reduction in assessment redesign time and a 20–30% drop in moderation overhead — time that academics can redeploy to feedback and mentoring.
AI as co-pilot, not shortcut.Generative AI is used to produce contextually authentic briefs, exemplar banks and scaffolded rubrics while integrity is preserved through method statements and viva/reflection checks.
Scalable equity through UDL and analytics.Built-in scaffolds, alternative modes and an analytics dashboard let you identify literacy gaps, preference clusters and intervention points across cohorts.
Sponsorship Enquiries
Arron.Penman@terrapinn.com
Speaking Enquiries:
Elizabeth.Paterson@terrapinn.com
Marketing Enquiries:
Natalie.Mcclelland@terrapinn.com
Start-Up Enquiries
Joseph.Zeko@terrapinn.com