2026 VATE State Conference

 

2026 VATE State Conference
Ode to Joy

Deakin University, Burwood - Thursday 19 November and Friday 20 November 2026

 

Conference program
Download and read the full conference program here. 

We are excited to return to Deakin University, Burwood for the 2026 VATE State Conference on Thursday, November 19 and Friday, November 20. A section of the conference will also be live streamed via Zoom including all the keynotes, guest speakers, panels and a small range of workshops. You can find more information about registering to attend the conference in-person on the State Conference event page. You can find more information about registering to attend the livestreamed component of the conference on the Livestream State Conference event page. Interstate delegates who wish to register can contact the VATE Office.

Please note: The Conference registration pages may load slowly due to the large number of workshops on offer.

 

Keynote speakers

   

Orwell for optimists: Secret words to drive away the melancholy

Dr Howie Manns

  

George Orwell isn’t known for his optimism. But when ideas run dry and our worth is measured in KPIs, it can be good to seek joy in unlikely places. This address is a joyful journey to some of those places. It is a celebration of words. It is a celebration of teachers. But, most of all, it is a joyful celebration of staying optimistic despite it all.

We start our journey with Orwell’s essay on the ‘common toad’ – a joyful ode to an unlikely hero and childhood curiosity. We then chase this curiosity into the wider world. From Argentina to the Strait of Hormuz, we will meet unlikely magic words, the stories behind them, and the joy they gift in dire times. We will also meet unlikely heroic figures – fictional and real – in the celebration of words, including Juliana Berners (the patron saint of collective nouns) and Belisa Crepusculario, who, for the price of 50 centavos, ‘gave the gift of a secret word to drive away the melancholy’.

Join me on an amazing journey into language, where words are magical, and Orwellian can actually mean uplifting.

Dr Howie Manns is a Senior Lecturer in Linguistics a Monash University, where he studies and teaches about language and society in Australia and Indonesia. He has worked as a language professional for more than 30 years, including as an English teacher in Indonesia and as a Persian linguist for the US Navy in the Middle East. Howie wrote his PhD on the rapid changes to the Indonesian language and society in the decade after the fall of Suharto. He has since been part of projects to investigate deafblind communication and the history and evolution of Australian slang. He has written or edited dozens of academic papers and six books on language, including Australian English Reimagined and The Routledge Handbook of Linguistics. Howie frequently appears in Australian and international media. He has regular segments on the ABC and co-wrote and presented the SBS explainer series Weird and Wonderful Aussie English. Howie is a prolific contributor on matters of language to the online website The Conversation (along with his frequent collaborator, Kate Burridge). But it is the wonder of language that truly keep Howie going. He is looking forward to taking you on that journey with him.
   

Powered by joy: The intersection of learning, creativity and joy

Namila Benson

  

What's the role of joy and creativity when it comes to learning? TV host, broadcaster, educator and writer – Namila Benson – shares insights on what happens when art and creativity collide with joy to become a transformative tool of learning. Classrooms – like galleries, theatres and museums – are not passive spaces. They encourage us to go from observation to participation. In discussing an ‘Ode to Joy’, Namila brings it back to the basics of joy ultimately being about an ode to curiosity and connection. Namila will discuss the arts as a platform to learn about the world around us and as a gateway into different continents, cultures, eras and knowledge systems. This keynote emphasises joy, not solely as a reward or an engine of learning – but a foundation and practice.

Namila Benson is an accomplished TV presenter, broadcaster, writer and educator working across multiple media and creative platforms. With a career spanning over three decades, joy and curiosity are the ongoing foundations of her practice to explore thought-provoking and accessible conversations about the world around us. Throughout her extensive career, Namila has presented and produced multiple tv programs on ABC including Art Works, Art Nation and Sunday Arts. She presented and produced The Art Show on Radio National and anchored magazine and music shows on Radio Australia (ABC International). Namila authored the memoir of respected Elder, actor and activist – the late, great Uncle Jack Charles. Uncle’s book, Jack Charles: Born-Again Blakfella, was released via Penguin Random House. Namila is the co-creator and host of national arts program, The Art Of… which ran for two seasons in 2024 and 2025.

Photo credit: Brook Andrew


Guest speakers

   

Reaching readers: Journeying back to books

Anna Burkey

  

Millions of young Australians enjoy reading. They tell us it helps them understand the world, and provides special moments to bond with family. That it makes them laugh, and cry, and figure out who they are in this crazy, shifting landscape we live in. They also tell us that they need a bit of help making space for reading, and finding books that they trust they’ll enjoy. Now more than ever, teachers need to be equipped with the right tools, tactics, messages and data to engage students with books and reading. As trusted booklovers in their lives, educators have the chance to engage with the playful ways students mediate the world, and adapt their approaches to meet students where they’re at.

In this address, Anna will take a practical look at how teachers can apply research insights to increase reading engagement, and provide some inspiration for how teachers and the broader school community can develop a vibrant reading culture for students.

Anna Burkey is the CEO of Australia Reads, a national not-for-profit on a mission to get more Australians reading. Originally hailing from Scotland, Anna was on the founding team of Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature and worked with the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Now living in Melbourne/Naarm, she has held senior roles at State Library Victoria – establishing the Children’s Quarter and leading the Centre for Youth Literature – and at the Australian Publishers’ Association, where she oversaw communications and public advocacy for the publishing sector. She is passionate about books, storytelling, and learning, and wants to see more Australians have access to the life-changing benefits of recreational reading.
   

PowerPoint is not pedagogy: An experimental year of undigital teaching

Dr Stephanie Wescott


Laura Trevaskis

  

PowerPoint has become the default architecture of teaching in higher education. Standardised learning environments, whole-school models of practice and the conflation of consistency with quality have produced a culture in which slide-based teaching is widely understood as a marker of good practice. Yet presentation technologies do more than support teaching; they also shape the conditions under which teaching occurs, embedding assumptions about how knowledge should be organised, delivered and evaluated.

In response to the hegemonic status of PowerPoint, we designed an experimental year of undigital teaching in our university classrooms as both a methodological and political intervention. Our inquiry examined what becomes possible when the infrastructural dominance of slides is deliberately disrupted. Drawing on reflective practice and ongoing dialogue between us as educators, the project traced how teaching practices shifted in the absence of slides. Without the linear architecture of PowerPoint, classroom pedagogy moved toward dialogue, improvisation, storytelling and collective knowledge-making. The experiment also surfaced challenges. Some were readily addressed through changes to classroom routines and expectations, while others proved more resistant, particularly where institutional systems and student expectations remain organised around slide-based teaching. Rather than a nostalgic rejection of technology, this project argues for pedagogical practices capable of resisting the managerial and digital hegemonies shaping contemporary education.

Dr Stephanie Wescott is an academic at Monash University Faculty of Education and a former English and history teacher. Her research interests are at the intersections of feminism, epistemic justice, misogyny in schools and pedagogies of emancipation.

Laura Trevaskis is an English, history and literacy teacher and sessional tutor at Monash University. She holds a Master’s in Inclusive and Special Education, consults for Clickview and has previously consulted for the Arc Victorian Lesson Plans Project. Her interests centre on innovative lesson design, negotiating the tension between relational pedagogy and institutional constraint.

   

Your turn to write

Toni Jordan

  

VATE teachers spend considerable time and energy encouraging creativity in their students. That’s because they know how important creativity is – not only is it a vital workplace skill, it’s one of the things that makes us human. But this session isn’t about your students’ creativity. It's about yours. Using writing exercises and prompts, Toni will guide you to start your own piece of fiction writing. Whether you're a beginner or someone who already has a creative practice, this session will give you permission to focus on a project of your own.

Toni Jordan is the author of eight novels including the international bestseller Addition, which was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award and adapted into a feature film. Her novel Nine Days was a VCE text and was awarded the Indie award for Best Fiction and Our Tiny, Useless Hearts was longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. Her latest novel, Tenderfoot, has been shortlisted for the Indie Award for best fiction and the ABIA award for Literary Fiction Book of the Year. Toni holds a Bachelor of Science in physiology and a PhD in Creative Arts and lives in Melbourne.

Photo credit: Tania Jovanovic

Panels

Creating something real: Student voice in the writing classroom

Have you ever had one of those moments when a student (maybe even a whole class?) has been totally absorbed in what they’re writing? When they know what they want to say, how they want to say it, and they really care about it? In this panel we explore the creative alchemy of student voice – how we can brew and bottle it. For both teachers and students, there is a real joy in the practice of developing students’ voice. The student, as apprentice in this apothecary, learns to hone their craft from the master, adding their own elements as they build on what has come before them. This is not to suggest that this transformational process is a mystical one, divorced from the realities of AI, high-stakes testing, literacy demands and mandates of ‘explicit teaching’. We are not pure idealists – we are pragmatists. And we’re ready to delve deep into exactly how we propose to centre student voice in our current times. Join experienced writing teachers and researchers, Associate Professor Lucinda McKnight and Emeritus Professor Terry Locke, in a conversation with Dr Emily Frawley, as we trouble, dissect and look to uphold writing classrooms that privilege authenticity and craft.

Panel chair

Dr Emily Frawley (The University of Melbourne)

Panellists

Associate Professor Lucinda McKnight (Deakin University)
Emeritus Professor Terry Locke (University of Waikato)

Too happy to teach? An exploration of text selection processes, assumptions, and choices

Why do so many of the texts we teach centre on suffering, loss and struggle? Must a text be ‘heavy’ to be worthy of study or have we sidelined joy for too long? This panel brings together three expert English leaders to reflect on their experiences of text selection. Drawing on their work at the chalkface and in school libraries, the panellists will explore the kinds of texts that are traditionally privileged on school booklists - and the assumptions that shape these choices. Together, they will question whether emotional weight is too often equated with literary value, or whether ‘sad’ texts are a necessary juxtaposition to encourage joy and gratitude in our classrooms. Through lively debate and practical examples, we will consider what may be overlooked when uplifting or hopeful texts are excluded from the curriculum. The discussion will be informed by research, cross-disciplinary perspectives, and key insights from the VATE Member Text Survey. Panellists will offer both provocations and practical reflections to expand notions of what constitutes a ‘worthy’ text.

Panel chair

Lauren Kyte (Salesian College Sunbury)

Panellists

Alice Nixon (Sunbury Downs College)
Jennifer Varrasso (Sunbury College)

Artistic licence to thrill: Bringing arts pedagogies into English

This panel celebrates the joy, curiosity and creative energy that emerges when the visual arts, performance and making are woven thoughtfully into English teaching. More than decorative add-ons, the arts give English its pulse by providing opportunities for deepening engagement with texts, paving new pathways to authentic voice and inviting students to think, feel and respond in ways that words alone sometimes cannot. What does it mean to deviate, interpret, and take creative liberties with English pedagogies?

The panellists bring distinct but complementary perspectives – grounded in secondary English teaching and classroom practice, as well as experience in working across the arts and education sectors. Together, they will explore what it means to implement pedagogy that makes room for the arts alongside (and inside) the everyday work for English teaching: How do we make space for genuine creative risk-taking in an outcomes-driven curriculum?; How do creative routines change the energy of a classroom?; What does it look like when students respond to literature through image, object or performance, rather than the written word alone?; How can collaboration between English teachers and arts practitioners open new pathways for students who don't yet see themselves as readers or writers?; How can educators stay creatively alive inside a curriculum that can sometimes feel constraining?

Drawing on classroom experience, cross-disciplinary collaboration and a shared belief in the power of creativity, this panel will spark conversation, offer practical provocations and remind us that joy and rigour are not in tension, they are inseparable from rich multimodal, embodied and cross-arts creative practice in English.

Panel chair

Associate Professor Joanne O'Mara (Deakin University), VATE President

Panellists

Jane Carter (Mentone Girls Secondary College and Drama Victoria)
Jenny Isaac (National Gallery of Victoria)
 

Conference Day 1

Thursday 19 November

9:00am - 10:15am:
President's welcome & Keynote Speaker

10:25am - 11:25am:
Workshops (TW1)

11:50am - 12:40pm:
Guest Speakers

12:50pm - 1:50pm:
Workshops (TW2)

2:40pm - 3:40pm:
Workshops (TW3)

3:40pm – 4:30pm:
VATE Village - Conference gathering

Conference Day 2

Friday 20 November

9:00am - 10:00am:
Keynote Speaker

10:10am - 11:10am:
Workshops (FW1)

11:35am - 12:35pm:
Panels

12:45pm - 1:45pm:
Workshops (FW2)

2:35pm - 3:35pm:
Workshops (FW3)