Simon Breakspear Author

Dr Simon Breakspear is a researcher, advisor and speaker on educational leadership, policy and change. He is a Research Fellow at the Gonski Institute at UNSW in Sydney, Australia. Over the last decade his speaking and leadership development work has given him the opportunity to work with over 100,000 educators across 10 countries. Simon develops frameworks and tools that make evidence-based ideas actionable and easy to understand. His AGILE SCHOOL LEADERSHIP program enables school leadership teams across Australia to effectively implement for impact within their unique educational context. Simon’s innovative approach to teacher professional learning, Teaching Sprints, is used by thousands of educators across the planet to enhance their expertise and engage with relevant research evidence. Simon is a trusted strategic advisor to educational system leaders in the areas of policy implementation, school leadership development and evidence-informed practice. He serves as an advisor to the NSW Department of Education School Leadership Institute, the Australia Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) and the Ontario Principals’ Council international school leadership program. He is also a Fellow of WISE. 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. He was a Commonwealth Scholar at Oxford and a Gates Scholar at Cambridge.  Simon began his work in education as a high school teacher and lives in Sydney with his wife and three young children. Bronwyn Ryrie Jones is a career teacher and teacher educator at the University of Melbourne (Graduate School of Education). She is also Director of Professional Practice at Teaching Sprints. Bron commenced her teaching career just over a decade ago. Since then, she has sustained an interest in all aspects of instruction, but she is particularly interested in how teachers make sense of the best available evidence in their lived teaching experience. In each of her ranging roles, Bron is never happier than when she is working with teachers. Bronwyn consults widely across Australia. She has worked with thousands of teachers, and hundreds of schools in metropolitan, regional and rural areas. She supports teachers to embed explicit principles of instruction, and to develop robust assessment tools. Bronwyn regularly consults with the Victorian Department of Education and various institutes of educational leadership. Bronwyn received her Bachelor of Education from RMIT University (Melbourne) and her Masters of Education from the Melbourne Graduate School of Education. She recently commenced doctoral studies. Bronwyn lives in Melbourne with her partner Brett and daughter Lucie.