 President Andy Mison has been awarded the ACEL Gold Medal.){kind=link}
Australian Secondary Principals’ Association (ASPA) President Andy Mison has been awarded the ACEL Gold Medal, as national discussions on education reform move towards several key decisions in coming months.
The Australian Council for Educational Leaders’ 2026 Gold Medal recognises an Australian educator whose contribution to educational leadership is considered outstanding at a national level.
Mr Mison, who represents Secondary principals nationally, has highlighted a series of developments that will affect schools, including the proposed Teaching and Learning Commission, changes to national education measurement, school funding and the use of AI in schools.
Education Ministers are due to receive advice in October on the proposed Teaching and Learning Commission, which would bring together the functions of AITSL, ACARA, AERO and Education Services Australia.
The proposal remains agreed in principle, with Queensland advocating an alternative approach based on improving governance of the existing agencies.
ASPA is open to consolidation if it improves support for schools, Mr Mison said, but argued that principals and teachers need a meaningful role in designing the new national architecture.
“Practitioner leadership must be embedded in the design of the national education architecture rather than in a consultation on the result,” he said.
AI in schools is also due to become a substantive item at the next Education Ministers’ Meeting for the first time.
Ministers are separately considering advice on whether NAPLAN writing should return to pen and paper, following emerging evidence about screens and cognitive development.
NAPLAN and school funding under scrutiny
Mr Mison has also called for a broader approach to measuring school performance, arguing that annual changes in national NAPLAN results provide limited information about individual schools and students.
“Movements of a few points across a national cohort tell an individual school or student very little,” he said.
ASPA is calling for every public school to be funded to the Schooling Resource Standard and for national reporting to extend beyond literacy and numeracy to areas including student engagement, agency, senior secondary completion and post-school transition.
A review of the national Measurement Framework for Schooling is already underway under the Better and Fairer Schools Agreement, with Education Ministers due to receive a final report by early 2027.
Mr Mison has also raised concerns about the different accountability requirements applying to public and non-government schools receiving government funding.
“We can see no principled reason why they should not extend to every school receiving public funds,” he said.
New support for school leaders
A national reflective supervision pilot for school leaders is also set to begin in February 2027 after the Commonwealth committed $450,000 to the initiative.
ASPA will jointly auspice the program with the Australian Primary Principals Association and ACEL, in partnership with Headspace. The first cohort will include at least 165 school leaders, with an independent evaluation to follow.
Mr Mison has also been involved in national work on teacher wellbeing and workplace safety, co-facilitating a Teacher Workforce Roundtable workshop with AITSL CEO Tim Bullard.
The work is now progressing through state, territory and Commonwealth processes, with advice to Education Ministers expected later this year.
Mr Mison’s ACEL Gold Medal will be formally celebrated at ACEL’s National Conference in Perth from 30 September to 2 October.