The 2024 Victorian Education Excellence Awards winners are outstanding teachers, principals, business managers, and support staff demonstrating outstanding dedication and achievement in government education, selected from 38 finalists.
In addition, the Lindsay Thompson Award for Excellence in Education was awarded to one overall winner whose contribution was judged to be the most outstanding to Victorian school education.
Congratulations to all of the 2024 award winners.
Lindsay Thompson Excellence in Education
Jacquie Burrows, Churchill Primary School
Over the last 5 years, Principal Jacquie Burrows has led the building of an exemplary instructional culture at Churchill Primary School, guided by the strong belief that all children can learn.
A passionate and influential spokesperson for the use of evidence-based approaches to both learning and wellbeing, Jacquie’s culture of high expectations is supporting strong wellbeing practices and positive student outcomes.
Jacquie’s comprehensive improvement approach has been to introduce and sustain consistent instructional practices at the school, which supports a low socioeconomic community. The significant improvements in both students’ learning and wellbeing resulting from her leadership have been recognised Australia-wide and are evidenced by strong NAPLAN results.
Jacquie is the Deputy Chair of the Latrobe Valley Principals Network and led the planning and facilitation of the Latrobe Valley Inclusive Practices Conference in 2023, which supported the capacity building of 350 of her principal and teaching colleagues across the Inner Gippsland Area.
Individual Award Winners
Colin Simpson Outstanding Secondary Principal
Lisa Holt, Rosebud Secondary College
The leadership of Principal Lisa Holt has transformed the school that is now Rosebud Secondary College.
Demonstrating exceptional leadership qualities, Lisa’s commitment to fostering positive change within the educational system is delivering an inclusive education for all students and their families.
Lisa's principled, student-centred focus has shaped the college as a place where highly inclusive practices are flexibly meeting each students’ needs. Dedicated to providing well-supported learning for young people, her leadership has substantially increased access to the opportunities and resources students need to fully embrace, and succeed, in their education.
Fostering many partnerships between the school and community, her leadership has greatly enhanced academic outcomes and wellbeing at the college. Determined that the young people of the Southern Peninsula will learn in a modern environment that reflects their future learning and work environments, Lisa has also overseen a significant investment in the college’s facilities, and in the future of her community.
Outstanding Primary Principal
Jacquie Burrows, Churchill Primary School
Over the last 5 years, Principal Jacquie Burrows has led the building of an exemplary instructional culture at Churchill Primary School, guided by the strong belief that all children can learn.
A passionate and influential spokesperson for the use of evidence-based approaches to both learning and wellbeing, Jacquie’s culture of high expectations is supporting strong wellbeing practices and positive student outcomes.
Jacquie’s comprehensive improvement approach has been to introduce and sustain consistent instructional practices at the school, which supports a low socioeconomic community. The significant improvements in both students’ learning and wellbeing resulting from her leadership have been recognised Australia-wide and are evidenced by strong NAPLAN results.
Jacquie is the Deputy Chair of the Latrobe Valley Principals Network and led the planning and facilitation of the Latrobe Valley Inclusive Practices Conference in 2023, which supported the capacity building of 350 of her principal and teaching colleagues across the Inner Gippsland Area.
Outstanding Primary Teacher
Felicity Kingsford, Brunswick South West Primary School
Art teacher Felicity’s transformative approach to enhancing student learning and wellbeing is encouraging children’s creativity and reflective thinking while developing students’ understanding of different cultures and viewpoints.
Integrating art with literacy, storytelling and other cross-disciplinary activities, Felicity actively fosters connections across classrooms and subjects.
Embracing events like Chinese New Year and creating Acknowledgement of Country posters, Felicity ensures that her lessons are culturally responsive, and resonate with students’ diverse backgrounds. Using works from artists across cultures and throughout history, she encourages students to explore and broaden their understanding of the many perspectives of art making.
Felicity takes a leading role in creating school-wide events which involve the community, such as the biennial art show at the Brunswick South West Primary School. She creates opportunities for her students to work together to critically evaluate and celebrate their own work, to identify areas for improvement, and to set meaningful goals for their personal development.
Outstanding Secondary Teacher
Wendy Coustley, Rosebud Secondary College
On taking up her position as Literacy Leader at the College in 2021, Wendy began an extended period of research and diagnosis to better understand the literacy challenges faced by students.
Applying the Framework for Improving Student Outcomes cycle, she implemented key literacy initiatives to address deficits in students' reading, spelling, and comprehension skills. Establishing partnerships with local primary schools, education support staff, and her peers, she built a culture of collective ownership of student learning that is successfully improving the college’s literacy levels.
Ensuring all members of the student population are supported to improve their literacy skills and can access opportunities for success, Wendy supports students with disabilities and works with vulnerable parents and students with compassion and integrity to improve literacy at every level of learning.
Wendy’s dedication to inclusive, system-wide literacy improvement is having a profound impact on the college’s learning environment and ensuring much-improved literacy outcomes for students and teachers.
Outstanding Early Career Primary Teacher
Ebony Peters, Bourchier Street Primary School
Early career teacher Ebony Peters’ dedication to student-centred learning, wellbeing and inclusion is creating positive cultural change at Bourchier Primary School.
Ebony's ability to implement effective and sustainable improvement plans and initiatives, grounded in research and modelled on best practice, is centred on students and inclusive of staff, and is made evident in the school’s growing culture of wellbeing and inclusion.
Whether initiating a student-run podcast, implementing a new restorative practices policy, or leading a much-valued staff wellbeing initiative, Ebony is fostering a more resilient and understanding school culture by ensuring that the school remains responsive to the evolving needs of its community.
Ebony's positive and purposeful relationships with students, peers, parents, and the broader community, along with her dedicated engagement to developing inclusive and culturally responsive policies, practices, and plans for the school, are building a strong foundation for the school’s continued success and ongoing improvement.
Outstanding Early Career Secondary Teacher
Anthony Merlino, Richmond High School
In just over a year, Head of Humanities and English and Humanities Teacher, Anthony has greatly increased student agency in all of his classes while making an important contribution to learning and teaching development at Richmond High School.
As Year 7 English Subject Leader in 2023, Anthony led the development of a new unit of work that aimed to promote student agency, directly addressing low levels of connectedness to learning reported by Year 7 students in school-wide attitudinal surveys.
Anthony is passionate about fusing student agency with formative assessment techniques to promote academic, social, and emotional growth among his students. Strongly emphasising the use of exemplar models, scaffolding, step-by-step instruction, and regular formative assessment and feedback, he has significantly improved his students’ connectedness to learning.
An active contributor to the development of a school-wide instructional model, Anthony has led professional learning through facilitating model classrooms, sharing practice on how to best embed the new instructional model.
Outstanding Business Manager
Juan Hompart, Ringwood Secondary College
As the new Business Manager at Ringwood Secondary College, Juan Hompart has brought significant financial expertise and school management experience to his role. His outstanding contribution, in a very short time, has won the respect and cooperation of the entire college community.
An integral member of the college's School Improvement Team, Juan oversees all financial and administrative aspects of the college, including the Ringwood Training Facility, the college’s on-campus vocational training organisation.
Ensuring all staff and processes are focused on improving students’ experience, outcomes, and success, Juan has streamlined all aspects of the college’s financial and administration management. He has eased parents’ ability to make financial transactions, developed domain leaders’ financial capability, and invested in non-teaching staff, providing professional learning and networking opportunities for Education Support staff and administrators.
Juan’s ability to maximise funding and improve financial literacy and administrative process is ensuring Ringwood Secondary College’s growth towards a successful future.
Team Award Winners
Outstanding School Improvement
Mount Waverley Primary School
Recently named as one of the top performing primary schools in Victoria in the 2023 Better Schools analysis, Mount Waverly Primary School has been transformed through a process of collaborative whole-school improvement that prioritised professional learning for its staff.
Forming the Principal Class Team in 2021, the school led a process of renewal based on evidence-informed decision making and a strong commitment to improving students’ learning experience and outcomes through collaborative process.
The team’s effective implementation of the school’s instructional model fostered a shared understanding of high-quality teaching practices and improved staffs’ understanding of students’ cultural diversity and learning needs. The initiation of whole-school professional learning and peer support mechanisms built collective instructional leadership capacity and energised the school with professional conversations about learning.
Recent NAPLAN data has shown a consistent upward increase, indicating the school is exceeding expectations in all areas, and most importantly, demonstrating significantly improved student achievement and progress.
Outstanding Education Support Team
Cranbourne West Secondary College
Pese Mai (Samoan for ‘sing out’) is a performance-based engagement initiative for Pasifika youth in Victorian government schools, focusing on celebrating Pacific cultures through contemporary performance.
Led by the exceptional Pese Mai team at Cranbourne West Secondary College and developed in partnership with the Victorian State Schools Spectacular, the program involves students working collaboratively to design and rehearse a performance, culminating in their feature as an independent performing group in the Victorian State Schools Spectacular each year.
The Pese Mai initiative offers students numerous opportunities to celebrate Pasifika culture through large-scale performances, including participation in the 2023 Moomba Festival and the City of Melbourne’s Choirs at Christmas series at Federation Square.
Pasifika students’ involvement in Pese Mai is fostering deeper connections between the college and students across Victoria, and between the college and Pasifika families. Increased levels of cultural pride, wellbeing, and student engagement with the college are improving students’ academic outcomes.
Outstanding Inclusive Education Team
Docklands Primary School
Docklands Primary School has implemented multiple evidence-based frameworks that are supporting the creation of a highly-effective and inclusive learning environment.
Implementing Multitiered Systems of Support to create effective instructional and behaviour support for students, staff are collaboratively evaluating academic and social data to inform when to increase supports to individual students in the form of evidence-based interventions.
The school’s staff represent a highly competent group of values-driven teachers and leaders working effectively within a supportive and high-performing structure to improve outcomes for their students. Their instructional coaching processes, playbooks, and systems of teacher support, provide teachers with the knowledge, skill, and professional learning they require to meet students’ academic and wellbeing needs.
The impact of their work is evident in the school’s most recent academic outcomes data and Attitudes to School Survey, with all students making significant progress in their academic achievement and wellbeing, and in their positive perception of the school.
Outstanding Koorie Education Team
Cardinia Network Marrung Steering Committee
The Cardinia Network Marrung Steering Committee’s (CNMSC) commitment to improving Aboriginal education has greatly improved inclusive teaching practices across Cardinia’s school network and resulted in enhanced wellbeing and educational outcomes for all Koorie students in the shire.
The CNMSC is made up of a dedicated group of school leaders representing Cardinia’s network of 26 schools. Working together in a Community of Practice to support and drive the Marrung Aboriginal Education Plan 2016 – 2026, their outstanding ability to co-build capacity across Cardinia’s school network has created a more connected, safe, and inclusive environment for Koorie children and their families.
The CNMSC builds stronger connections between Koorie communities and schools and integrates Aboriginal cultural activities and perspectives into schools, informed by the voices of Koorie students and parents. They have achieved profound change in the Cardinia region, evidenced by Koorie students’ improved attendance, academic achievement, and engagement in school events and cultural activities.
Outstanding Provision for High-Ability Students
Preston High School
Preston High School's commitment to encouraging staged learner growth is ensuring all students, including high-ability learners, have the opportunity to excel.
The school’s Learning and Teaching Team lead a collaborative process of curriculum design and development that is enabling all students to access increasingly challenging content as they need it, extending high-ability students’ understanding of that content through its application.
Delivering targeted support to their students, the team has initiated community engagement and partnerships with other schools and universities to enrich their high-ability students’ educational experience and provide further professional learning opportunities and engagement.
In 2023, Preston High School developed the Preston High Institute to offer professional learning for schools and teachers. Partnering with the University of Melbourne, the school’s Learning and Teaching Team has led the use of developmental rubrics to better facilitate the tracking of student progress, to identify areas for individual improvement and provide targeted growth opportunities for high-ability learners.
Dr Lawrie Shears Outstanding Global Teaching and Learning
Glen Eira College
The Japanese Immersion Team at Glen Eira College strongly believe that embedding language in a defined context is crucial for language acquisition. The team’s unique immersion program implements Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) to teach science through Japanese, using content relevant to the Victorian Curriculum.
Students explore a range of science topics through the lens of Japanese language and culture to provide new perspectives and challenges to learning. Drawing comparisons to their own languages and cultures, students reflect on how their ideas and values are shaped by their cultural backgrounds.
Networking with other CLIL practitioners in a University of Melbourne project titled ‘Integrating Indigenous Australian Knowledge and Japanese Language Learning’, the team and their students have developed resources to embed Indigenous ways of knowing into their curriculum.
The Japanese Immersion Science Program is empowering students to challenge the monolingual mindset and apply their learning in ways that enrich content with globally relevant language and understanding.
Updated