19/08/2026
Global learning. Local impact. 🌏
This week, our Executive Director Tom Sexton, Strategy Implementation Manager Julia Petrov, Board Director Anne Pekin, Ben Shields from St Patrick’s Primary School Ballarat and Emily Clarke from St Alipius Parish School Ballarat represented DOBCEL at the Education Systems Summit in Turku, Finland.
The team shared our work on Collaborative Innovation Research Prototypes (CIRPS) with an international audience, with their workshop very well received, while building valuable connections with education colleagues from Finland, Norway, Denmark and Canada.
The visit also provided opportunities to experience education from a very different perspective, including a visit to Turku Cathedral School as it celebrates its remarkable 750th anniversary. These conversations and connections are an important opportunity to share what we are learning through our system-wide improvement work while bringing new ideas and perspectives back to our schools and communities.
The team now travels to Tampere for the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER), where they will present a paper on DOBCEL Strategy 2035 and contribute to an international panel. It is wonderful to see the work happening across DOBCEL contributing to the global education conversation—and for our leaders to learn alongside educators from around the world.
Global learning with the potential for real local impact.
