The Kids' Conference is a unique and engaging event where all presenters are primary and secondary students who share their research projects on a chosen discipline through new and emerging technologies in a real conference environment.
Mission
The Kids' Conference was created as a response to seeing how students interact with and learn through their experiences, their peers and their environment by experimenting with new technologies in a way that wasn't being reflected in the curriculum at the time we started. Luckily this is changing and we'd like to think the Kids' Conference presenters and their teachers have been a big part of this.
Since our early beginnings the Kids' Conference has been able to bring this concept into the mainstream and profile leading educators and their students as facilitators and learner-researchers.
Vision
Founded in 2012 by Stephen Spain with Jo Clyne from the History Teachers' Association, with the support of Dr. John Ballard Associate Vice-Chancellor ACU Victoria and Dr. Geraldine Larkins our founding supporter and adviser, the Kids' Conference grew with the Geography Teachers' Association of Victoria joining in 2016 followed by The Royal Society of Victoria and Cultural Infusion in 2017 and the Museum of Australian Democracy in 2018.
Stephen is the principal founder of the Kids' Conference and is currently an academic teacher at Monash UnIversity and taught Master of Teaching at University of Melbourne and ACU: History Methods and Humanities. Stephen has also taught in Oxford and has a PhD in Systems Thinking in Education from Murdoch University with a focus on curriculum design and history pedagogy. He graduated MA in Education from Oxford Brookes University and studied education at the Bodleian, University of Oxford. He has also lectured at the Victorian College of The Arts. He serves on the Outreach and Partnerships Committee of The Royal Society of Victoria and has been commissioned to write human rights curriculum for the Australia Council for Human Rights Education and has just published a national curriculum model as an alternative to the Australian Curriculum. Stephen has published internationally on curriculum in academic journals and written education feature articles for the London Guardian and the Melbourne Age and interviewed by the BBC and ABC on his education and arts projects and related issues.
Professor Kate Smith-Miles
AO Committee Member, The University of Melbourne
Kate is Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research Capability) and a Melbourne Laureate Professor in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at The University of Melbourne. She is also Director of the ARC Training Centre in Optimisation Technologies, Integrated Methodologies, and Applications (OPTIMA). She was also President of the Australian Mathematical Society, from 2016-2018 and a member of the Australian Research Council College of Experts from 2017 - 2019. She also served as Head of School of Engineering and Information Technology at Deakin University (2006-2009). In 2017 Professor Smith-Miles made history when she became the first woman and first Australian to give the annual Alan Tayler lecture in its 31 year history at University of Oxford.
Professor Pasi Sahlberg
Committee Member, The University of Melbourne
Pasi is a Finnish teacher, award-winning author, and global thought-leader who has helped governments around the world to improve their schools. He has worked for the Finnish Government, World Bank, European Commission, and several universities as an education expert. Pasi has received several awards for his work on improving education, his favourite being the 2016 Lego Prize in Denmark. His books are translated into 30 languages. Three years ago, Pasi wrote a book titled “Let the Children Play: How more play can save our schools and help children thrive” that has become influential in returning play back to schools. Pasi is a Professor of Educational Leadership at the Faculty of Education, The University of Melbourne.
Dr Carolina Imlach Castano
Committee Member, Science Teacher, Preshil School
Carolina is a Colombian-Australian educational researcher whose scholarship critically reimagines the role of education, particularly science education, as a tool for compassion, ethical transformation, social justice, and peace building. Her more than 20 years of experience expands beyond academic settings to field work with universities, schools, governments and NGO’s in Australia, New Zealand and South America. Her work integrates different disciplines and theories including Critical Pedagogy, Ethics of care, Peace and post-conflict education, decolonisation of the curriculum, transformative education and action research.
Dr. Megan Power
Committee Member, Monash University
Megan is a Research Fellow and lecturer with the Faculty of IT, Monash University (Australia). Megan's research looks at how network-like organisations emerge in relation to the institutional environment. Her thesis, the Institution and the Network, views this through the ARC Centres of Excellence Programme. She is co-researcher with the ARDC Data Discovery Project & is scoping work on Agile Control & Command (AC2) relevant to Defence Science.
Melissa Riley Committee Member
Deputy Principal - Pedagogy, Learning Design and Innovation, Sacred Heart College Geelong
Melissa is an experienced executive level educational leader, History teacher and Edtech specialist. She is focused on the development of the whole student and their continuum of development beyond the school gates, enmeshing wellbeing and learning frameworks to cater for the holistic development of the student, best preparing them for active and engaged lives.In 2023 she took up a Deputy Principal role at Sacred Heart College in Geelong, a school very much at the leading edge of new approaches to education. Melissa is redesigning learning and reimagining every facet of schooling. She has a strong history of leading people - developing staff capacity and nurturing growth and career development in her colleagues.
Wenjie Zhang
Committee Member
Wenjie Zhang(Fiona) is currently completing a Master of Teaching (Secondary) at the University of Melbourne and holds a Master of Laws from the Australian National University. Before moving into education, she worked in corporate and legal settings and later became involved in student mentoring, academic support, and community engagement programs. Wenjie's interests include education policy, curriculum development, and educational equity, particularly how education can create opportunities for young people from diverse backgrounds.
Phillipa Beckett
Committee Member MC
Phillipa is a Primary School teacher and an Australian Catholic University alumna. With Bachelors Degrees in Medieval Studies, Classical Languages and Neuroscience, and a Masters Degree in Information Systems, Phillipa is passionate about learning everything. She is currently studying her Masters in Expert Teaching Practice and raising three wonderful sons.
Dr. Bill Miles
Committee Member
Bill has a BMusEd from University of Colorado at Boulder, an MA (Prelim) from Latrobe University majoring in music composition and analysis, and a PhD in Music Education from Monash University, where he was a teaching fellow from 1997-99. He has lectured at Melbourne, Monash and RMIT universities and the Australian Catholic University (ACU) where, from 2007-15, he was the lecturer-in-charge of the Graduate Diploma in Education (Music) and Master of Teaching - Secondary (Music). From 2012-18 he lectured in music pedagogy at the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music, Monash University. Bill was Chairperson of the Examination Setting Panels and one of the Chief Assessors for the Victorian Certificate of Education Music Performance (Solo & Group) study designs (1995-2010) and for the Music: History & Styles study design (1995-2003) and has been a performance assessor for the various VCE and VCE-VET music performance subjects since 1992 and has been the External Advisor (Music) and Examinations Vetter for the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma since 2010.
Linc Yeh Yow
Kids' Conference adviser
inc is the Indigenous Higher Education Unit Coordinator and brings his extensive teaching skills for the benefit of students, ACU and First Peoples. He see immersion in the environment as necessary to influence and evoke change for all. Linc was appointed Indigenous Coordinator of Jim-Baa-Yer in March 2015. He is a proud Aboriginal South Sea Islander Murri man from Queensland and of Goreng Goreng/Gunja heritage, where his great grandmothers’ traditional countries are situated. Goreng Goreng country is located in Bundaberg and Gunja country, is in Cunnamulla, south-west Queensland. He was born and raised in Jagera/Turrabul country, Brisbane, and graduated in the early 90s as a Physical Education/English teacher at Queensland University of Technology. Linc draws on his culture, experiences & expertise to transfer skills & knowledge through his current role at ACU
Jenny Zhang
Committee Member
Jenny is an aspiring Career Development Specialist with a background in cross-cultural communication, education services, and client support. Experienced in guiding students through education pathways, maintaining exam integrity, and delivering exceptional service. Passionate about helping people achieve their career and education goals.
Brianne Wragg
Committee Member
Brianne is the founder of Creative Genesis, a vibrant writing mentorship and workshop program for homeschoolers and alternative learners across the U.S. and beyond. She is a certified confidence coach, DISC facilitator, and passionate learning designer who blends creativity, project-based learning, and mindset coaching to help young writers thrive. Before launching Creative Genesis, Brianne taught in schools around the world using a range of curricula (IB, Cambridge, Common Core, UK National Curriculum, Victorian). She has been a classroom teacher, a freelance writer, a curriculum designer, and a mentor—but no matter the title, she has always been a teacher at heart. Brianne's time at Synthesis, an innovative STEM program, gave her the space to reimagine writing education—and bring Creative Genesis to life.
