NARRATIVE THREADS

For the days onsite at PCEC, the program unfolds through four concurrent narratives. Delegates select a narrative each day and follow that pathway through the story of UNLEASH, exploring ideas from different perspectives. As sessions vary slightly across narratives each day, please refer to the program below to view the specific topics and presenters.

WEDNESDAY 13TH MAY

Narrative A & B: Learning from the Centre (Group A & B)

Across the conference, several narratives draw on learning shaped by place, culture, and long-standing relationships. These stories do not speak for First Nations knowledge systems, nor do they present a single worldview. Instead, they reflect what emerges when learning is grounded in context. It asks:

  1. How can learning that is deeply grounded in place, culture, and relationship challenge dominant educational assumptions?
  2. What can educators learn from long-term, community-led learning practices that unfold beyond standard timelines and metrics?
  3. How might we respectfully engage with place-based knowledge in ways that honour context, responsibility, and reciprocity
Experiencing the conference through this lens you will leave with a deeper understanding of how learning takes shape in complex, place-based contexts, particularly where climate, culture, and community sit outside standard educational models.

Outcomes

  • Gain insight into incredible place-based, strength-focused learning approaches shaped by context and community.
  • Understand how climate, culture, and lived experience influence learning spaces, programs, and timelines.
  • Reflect on how lessons from complex environments can inform practice elsewhere, without extracting or generalising them.

Program (Group A)

10:30am - Learning from the Centre - Understanding Context in the NT - Tonielle Dempers (REFLECT)

11:30am - The History of Tomorrow: Looking Back and Thinking Forward - Rachel Faber, Lewina Schrale and Jessica Wang (EXPERIMENT)

1:30pm - Yirramagardu School, Roebourne - Finn Pedersen & Lenore Stanton (ENGAGE)

2:30pm - Living. Learning. Leading. – A Tapestry of School Life in Western Australia (EXHIBITION)


Program (Group B)

10:30am - Living. Learning. Leading. – A Tapestry of School Life in Western Australia (EXHIBITION)

11:30am - Learning from the Centre - Understanding Context in the NT - Tonielle Dempers (REFLECT)

1:30pm - Moorditjabiny (Becoming stronger by coming together) - Clare Mengler & Jack Collard (EXPERIMENT)

2:30pm - Unlearning Empire: How Timor Leste can break from Colonial Schooling and Build its own Educational Future - Matt Dwyer (ENGAGE)

Narrative C & D: Intersectional, Multicultural, Transformational Learning (Group C & D)

This narrative explores learning that crosses cultural, disciplinary, and neurodiverse boundaries, recognising that learners are shaped by multiple, intersecting identities. It considers transnational perspectives and learning cultures, where education extends across borders and digital platforms, empowering learners to curate their own pathways. It asks:

  1. How can shifts in language, space, curriculum, and leadership align to transform the way learning environments and designed and experienced?
  2. In what ways can schools and learning environments be shaped to recognise, include and empower intersectional, multicultural, and neurodiverse learners?
  3. What new models of success, wellbeing, and collective thriving can emerge when students, educators and designers co-create their educational journeys?

Experiencing the conference through this lens you will emerge with an expanded and inspired knowledge of diverse learning ecosystems emerging across India and globally.

Outcomes: 

  • Gain narrative-mapping tools to rethink your school’s identity and purpose.
  • See how alternative models and micro-narratives drive innovation in complex contexts.
  • Take home strategies to apply global insights to local contemporary learning challenges


Program (Group C)

10:30am - Dissonant Futures, Shared Hopes: Educational Transformations in India - Dr Anuradha Chatterjee and Philip Idle (ENGAGE)

11:30am - Living. Learning. Leading. – A Tapestry of School Life in Western Australia (EXHIBITION)

1:30pm - Ready... Set.... - Lara Makintosh (REFLECT)

2:30pm - From Kampung to Compound: Context, Culture and Care in Learning Environments - Nur Syazadiyanah binti Suraini (EXPERIMENT)


Program (Group D)

10:30am - The History of Tomorrow: Looking Back and Thinking Forward, Rachel Faber, Lewina Schrale and Jessica Wang (EXPERIMENT)

11:30am - Dissonant Futures, Shared Hopes: Educational Transformations in India - Dr Anuradha Chatterjee and Philip Idle (ENGAGE)

1:30pm - Living. Learning. Leading. – A Tapestry of School Life in Western Australia (EXHIBITION)

2:30pm - Embedding Cultural Narratives in Aotearoa New Zealand School Design - Jennifer Charteris (REFLECT)


THURSDAY 14TH MAY

Narrative A & B: (Y)Our Learning Everyday (Group A & B)

This narrative explores what it means to be a lifelong learner in today’s rapidly changing world. It focuses on learning as a personal, social, and ecological act—happening everywhere all at once, not only in classrooms. It asks:

  1. How can educators and schools nurture self-regulated, adaptable learners?
  2. What roles can educators, leaders, and designers play in helping learners thrive locally and globally in an age of complexity?
  3. What pedagogies and design innovations enable students to flourish within and beyond school?

Experiencing the conference through this lens you will learn about the possibilities that emerge when learning stretches across generations, restoring connection and belonging.

Outcomes:

  • Learn how to design programs that connect children, families, and community in meaningful new ways.
  • Understand how advanced pedagogies improve wellbeing, engagement, and community cohesion.
  • Leave with practical models for shared-use spaces and long-term community partnerships

Program (Group A)

10:30am - Our Learning: Everyone, Everyday - Freya Kuchel & Georgi Fairley (REFLECT)

11.30am - Living. Learning. Leading. – A Tapestry of School Life in Western Australia (EXHIBITION)

1.30pm - Designing for Regenerative Thinking: Reflecting on Schools as Living Ecosystems - Anne Knock (ENGAGE)

2:30pm - Playing with productive paradox to explore main and hidden student stories of thriving - Jill Willis, Jenna Gillet-Swan & Nick Kelly (EXPERIMENT)


Program (Group B)

10:30am - Post occupancy evaluation - Agatha Partyka, Alison Giancristofaro-Keswell, Ella Camporeale, Nicole Kirby & Olivia McKim (EXPERIMENT)

11:30am - Our Learning: Everyone, Everyday - Freya Kuchel and Georgi Fairley (REFLECT)

1:30pm - Living. Learning. Leading. – A Tapestry of School Life in Western Australia (EXHIBITION)

2:30pm - Breaking down the Boundaries in the Hester Hornbrook Academy Physical Environment - Sally Lasslett (ENGAGE)

Narrative C & D: Hyper Glocal – Third Space Learning (Group C & D)

In a world where the local and the global constantly intersect, lifelong learning is no longer optional—it’s essential. This narrative explores the “third space” where cultures, disciplines, and generations overlap, creating a foundation for new ways of knowing. It asks:

  1. How can schools and communities cultivate intergenerational learners who thrive in hybridity— comfortable with ambiguity, dialogue, and multiple perspectives?
  2. What role can maker labs, art studios, fab labs, jam factories, engineering garages, incubators, and community gardens play in lifelong learning?
  3. How can alternative learning spaces create a revolution of new roles needed to address challenges and create new opportunities?

Experiencing the conference through this lens you be energised by discovering how learning flourishes in informal community spaces, cafés, hubs, lawns, and digital commons beyond traditional classrooms.

Outcomes:

  • Learn strategies to activate student agency, creativity, and identity in third spaces.
  • Understand how “global” learning connects young people to community, culture, and global perspectives.
  • Gain practical methods for designing hybrid learning cycles your school can implement immediately 

Program (Group C)

10:30am - Living. Learning. Leading. – A Tapestry of School Life in Western Australia (EXHIBITION)

11:30am - Learning ecosystems for all ages - Derek Bartels, Andrew Pender & Richard Leonard (ENGAGE)

1:30pm - Learning Out Loud: A Non Specialist’s Tinkering Journey Into Space - Meg Berry (EXPERIMENT)

2:30pm - The Schoolyard Greenprint: Designing Outdoor Spaces Where Teens Thrive - Gweneth Leigh (REFLECT)


Program (Group D)

10:30am - Learning ecosystems for all ages - Derek Bartels, Andrew Pender & Richard Leonard (ENGAGE)

11:30am - Post occupancy evaluation - Agatha Partyka, Alison Giancristofaro-Keswell, Ella Camporeale, Nicole Kirby & Olivia McKim (EXPERIMENT)

1:30pm - TBC by Homa Tavangar (REFLECT)

2:30pm - Living. Learning. Leading. – A Tapestry of School Life in Western Australia (EXHIBITION)