"What Happens When You're Not There? Leading HPE Programs That Last"
Session Description
Great HPE programs rarely fail because of a lack of enthusiasm. They fail because sustainability was never part of the plan.
In this session, Chris Goldstraw, Expert Teacher in Residence for Health and Physical Education at the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership, shares his leadership journey through the Teaching Impact Fellowship, and what it taught him about the difference between launching a program and truly embedding it. Using the development and implementation of the SPARK Program, a whole-school wellbeing initiative at Mount Waverley Primary School, as a launch pad, Chris unpacks the honest realities of leading change in a school context, what worked, what didn't, and what he wishes he'd thought about earlier.
The session then turns the lens outward. HPE educators are among the most energetic and innovative in any school, but that energy can work against long-term impact when programs depend on one person's drive to keep them alive. Participants will explore the conditions that allow HPE and wellbeing initiatives to thrive beyond their founder and will leave with a shift in how they think about sustainability and a practical planning tool they can apply to a current or upcoming initiative in their own school.
This session is for HPE leaders, wellbeing practitioners, and anyone who has ever poured themselves into a program and wondered how to make it last.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
Recognise the common leadership and cultural conditions that cause HPE and wellbeing initiatives to stall or collapse after their initial implementation.
Reflect on their own leadership role in whole-school change, including how to build shared ownership across staff, leaders and the broader school community.
Identify the key sustainability considerations that should be embedded in program planning from the outset, not retrofitted at the end.
Apply a practical "what happens when I'm not there?" planning prompt to an existing or upcoming initiative in their own school context.
Recognise the common leadership and cultural conditions that cause HPE and wellbeing initiatives to stall or collapse after their initial implementation.
Reflect on their own leadership role in whole-school change, including how to build shared ownership across staff, leaders and the broader school community.
Identify the key sustainability considerations that should be embedded in program planning from the outset, not retrofitted at the end.
Apply a practical "what happens when I'm not there?" planning prompt to an existing or upcoming initiative in their own school context.
Curriculum Level
Other
Keywords
Curriculum Planning and Implementation, Leadership, Student Engagement, Student Voice and Agency
Presentation Type
Classroom Workshop
C
15