Keynote Speakers
Deborah Wood
Deputy Chief Executive Evaluation and Review Māori
Education Review Office | Te Tari Arotake Mātauranga
Deborah has worked across many aspects of ERO including school/kura evaluation, system research, resource development and methodology and professional practice. In a prior role, Manager Evaluation Research and Methodology – Māori, Deborah led foundational research and resource work within Te Tāhū Whare.
This includes system evaluation on behalf of other agencies to drive their decision making, and our own body of work building the knowledge base relating to Māori learner success including Nihinihi Whenua and Te Kura Huanui.
Joce Nuttall
Executive Dean - Education
University of Canterbury
Professor Joce Nuttall is Amo Matua | Executive Dean in Te Kaupeka Ako | Faculty of Education at the University of Canterbury. Joce’s expertise is in learning to lead in education, workforce policy development, and curriculum theory in the early years. Her current research focuses on the learning needs of school and ECE professionals who are working to support migrant teachers commencing work in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Joce has spent the last ten years leading a dedicated research program focused on high-leverage professional development methodologies for leadership development in education, particularly in early childhood education. The outcome of this research has been a new theory and methodology for leadership development in education, focused on leaders’ capacity to take a systems-level and outcomes-oriented view of educational institutions.
Dr Simon Breakspear
Simon is a researcher, advisor and speaker on educational leadership, policy and change. Simon develops frameworks and tools that make evidence-based ideas actionable and easy to understand. Over the last decade his capability building work has given him the opportunity to work with over 100,000 educators across more than 10 countries.
Simon is an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at UNSW. He serves as an advisor to the NSW Department of Education and sits on an expert steering committee for the Australia Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL). Simon received his BPsych (Hons) from UNSW, his MSc in Comparative and International Education from the University of Oxford and his PhD in Education from the University of Cambridge. Simon began his work in education as a high school teacher.
Jacoba Matapo
Jacoba has ancestral ties to Siumu Samoa and Leiden Holland. She is the first Pro Vice-Chancellor Pacific at Auckland University of Technology. She is an Associate Professor in Pacific Early Childhood Education with over 15 years of experience in educational leadership, spanning ITE programme leadership, University leadership and leadership in ECE. She has led key Pasifika education projects, anchoring Pacific philosophy and pedagogies for learner success. Her work advocates for the value of Pacific indigenous knowledge systems in education and the possibilities of transformation through relational ecologies, story-telling and the art of embodied literacies.