Keynote
speakers

Geoff Masters AO is an international adviser on curriculum and assessment redesign. He was previously long-term head of the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER). He has conducted a number of reviews for governments, including a review of the NSW school curriculum. He led an international study of five high-performing jurisdictions for the US National Center on Education and the Economy (published as Building a World-Class Learning System) and is author of the National School Improvement Tool and Principal Performance Improvement Tool. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2014.

Professor Emeritus David Hopkins has enjoyed a range of educational roles, among them he has been Chief Adviser to three Secretary of States on School Standards in the UK, Dean of Education at the University of Nottingham, consultant to the OECD and WHO, advisor to some 20 Ministries globally and a secondary school teacher, as well as an Outward Bound Instructor and International Mountain Guide.

David completed his school improvement trilogy with the publication of Exploding the Myths of School Reform; the previous books being School Improvement for Real (2001) and Every School a Great School (2007).

He was recently ranked as the 16th most influential educator in the world by the American based Global Gurus organization. His latest book Unleashing Greatness will be published in Spring 2024.

Bill Lucas is Chair of the Advisory Committee at the Global Institute of Creative Thinking and Professor of Learning and Director of the Centre for Real-World Learning (CRL) at the University of Winchester.

In 2017, Bill was appointed by the OECD as co-chair of the strategy group for the 2021 PISA Test of Creative Thinking. In 2018 he was invited to join the Durham Commission on Creativity in Education as an academic adviser and was subsequently co-author of its first report in 2019. He is also Chair of the Advisory Committee at The Tony Little Centre for Innovation and Research in Learning of Eton College, a member of the LEGO Foundation Advisory Board, and an adviser to Australia’s Mitchell Institute.

Tracey Burns is Chief Research Officer at the National Center on Education and the Economy in Washington, DC. Previously she was Chief of Research for the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation at the OECD. She has additionally served as an Expert for UNESCO’s Broadband and Future of Education Commissions and is a member of UNESCO Santiago’s High Level Technical Council for their Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study. 

Tracey’s most recent publications include The evolution of evidence informed policy and practice: An international perspective (2023), What Schools for the Future? Leadership for Uncertainty (2022); Trends Shaping Education 2022; Back to the Future of Education: Four OECD Scenarios for Schooling (2020); Education in the Digital Age: Happy and Healthy Children (2020).