HundrED’s very first Spotlight will be taking place in Victoria, Australia. Working in partnership with Melbourne based Education Changemakers, Australia’s leading education innovation company, HundrED will focus on developing and innovating education in the area of Victoria.
As with most countries, literacy and numeracy are still very much the focus in Australian education, although STEM is creeping in thanks to the hugely disruptive force of technology and how this impacts the careers available to new graduates.
However, it’s going to take more than just focusing on these areas to innovate education. Through the Victoria Spotlight we hope to address the many areas that education needs to innovate, with a particular focus on Victoria as a territory.
One such area is how we approach both our teachers and new ideas in education. David Faulkner, CEO and Co-Founder of Education Changemakers, explains, ‘We need to get better at trusting our teachers and school leaders, and letting them create and implement the solutions that they know will work to improve outcomes for students. We also have amazing education innovations that get incredible impact that are created by teachers, school leaders and students. We need to get better at sharing these innovations and providing practical ways for them to be scaled. We also need to find better ways to measure impact and growth aside from standardised tests.’
We are all understandably wary of meddling in education, no one wants to mess it up. But in order for the next generation to be prepared for the future world we must be willing to get our hands dirty, as Faulkner continues, ‘A great education is one where every child is given what they need to thrive in a changing world. At the core of this is exceptional teachers and school leaders supported by the system to innovate solutions to complex challenges. A great system is one that is always getting better so our system should be one that embraces risk, innovation, failure and celebrates success.’
‘The biggest challenge we face is giving our students the character skills they need to thrive over the next 100 years and these skills are very different to the skills that have been the focus of the school curriculum in the past 100 years. But I believe that if we can trust our educators and continue to build their capacity and support them, we can meet this challenge.’
Excited and fired up to get involved? Are you sitting on an amazing idea that will impact education for the better? Get involved!
The submission period will begin in October and close on the 28th of March 2018. An expert panel that will be formed before the end of 2017 will make the selection of the final ten spotlight initiatives by April 2018. The ten chosen spotlight innovations will then be provided with additional capacity building from Education Changemakers from May to August to support them through their content production, including the creation of video case studies.
Finally the ten selected innovations will be announced at the EduChange Festival in October 2018 along with workshops that participants can attend, to learn more about how to implement the innovations in their schools. All selected innovations will also be profiled on the HundrED website and made available as a resource, free to educators across the world.
To be a part of HundrED's Spotlight on Victoria, Australia, apply here.
Interested in setting up a HundrED Spotlight where you are or in your area of expertise? Contact Lasse Leponiemi for more details: lasse@hundred.org