Dr Claire Brown

Teaching excellence is both art and rocket science.  Claire is an accomplished, respected education leader with 35+ years of national and international experience learning and researching the art and science of teaching. She has a proven track record as a successful, strategic, values‐driven, energetic education leader. Much of her career has been devoted to improving the quality and status of teaching in Australia through roles she has had in Departments of Education, universities, and classrooms. She has served as a teacher, administrator, and researcher in schools (primary and secondary) and tertiary education. She has won over $5 million in research and philanthropic grants focused on improving the quality and status of teaching and learning. Over one million readers across the world have read her education articles published online in The Conversation. Her PhD, awarded in 2020 with level 1 achievement (no changes required), focused on the enactment of education policy. She analysed outcomes from a systems-led, transformational education reform initiative, the New Basics Project, funded in the early 2000s by Education Queensland. Her research interests are: professional learning, school improvement, education policy and leadership, pedagogy, student experience and engagement, students at risk, and student/teacher aspirations from schools to tertiary contexts.

Currently, she is the National Director, AVID Australia (Advancement Via Individual Determination) at Victoria University (VU).  She established AVID at VU as a cross-sectoral, not-for-profit, professional learning social enterprise in 2011. It is now a sustainable, financially independent unit. Similar to the Academy model, AVID fosters whole-school improvement for primary and secondary schools built around raising the quality of teaching. AVID provides contextualised, evidence-informed professional learning and coaching sustained through continuous improvement cycles. AVID nurtures cross-sectoral professional learning communities linking local, state and federal government education policy initiatives with tertiary, school, industry, and community providers across 70+ AVID schools in four states and the NT. We believe student success is achieved with collaboration among teachers, students, parents, leadership, governments, and local communities.