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Teach For Australia’s mission is to grow a community of leaders committed to equity for children.
Our Alumni are the lifeblood of this work, taking what they’ve learnt and developed during their TFA programs, and using it to create change through their careers and alongside the communities they work with.
This is not always easy work and it’s important to pause and celebrate the hard won gains our Alumni are spearheading.
Thanks to a generous donation from The Hansen Little Foundation, Teach For Australia has hosted the third Jane Hansen Excellence Awards, recognising success in classroom practice, school leadership, policy, advocacy and community.
This year’s recipients are doing exceptional work. Read on to learn more about each of them.
(Listed by category)
Giving students a platform to say what matters to them
The motto behind Tassie-based music teacher Jesse Bowden’s project, Kurious Beats, is: “We want our students to feel like they’re more than a postcode.”
Kurious Beats was started by Jesse to give their students a platform to talk about the issues they actually care about.
Students take ownership of every stage, from the idea to the finished track, working with industry mentors to produce professional work. Along the way they build confidence, a stronger sense of who they are and the recognition that what they have to say matters.
By sharing their songs and stories with their peers, families and the broader community, they challenge stereotypes and showcase the talent, creativity and potential that exists within their community.
Turning evidence on AI in schools into policy action
As a Director at Learning First, Emily led research into how artificial intelligence is being used in Australian schools, finding that it was already affecting teaching and learning and had become an urgent policy problem.
Her report distinguished between users, purposes and contexts; and recommended coordinated action including an urgent review of senior secondary assessment.
Three months after its release, the NSW Government announced a review of AI’s impact on student learning and HSC assessment. This report shows clear equity implications: assessment integrity matters most when results determine what students can do next, and technology adopted at scale without evidence risks widening the gaps that already exist.
Learning First is working with other Australian education systems to continue the research to further inform policy.
Eight years building belonging at Western Port Secondary College
Xavier has spent eight years at Western Port Secondary College building a culture of safety, belonging and high expectations.
With his leadership team he developed a model for reintegrating students who had disengaged from schooling – four years of sustained work that is now producing results, with VCE and VPC completion rates exceeding 90%.
Since 2022, students reporting a sense of connectedness has risen from 38% to 62%, and those reporting an advocate at school from 59% to 83%. The school was rated Well Above Similar Schools for wellbeing in both 2024 and 2025, and received the Outstanding School Improvement Award at the 2025 Victorian Education Excellence Awards.
Bringing offshore wind engineering into remote classrooms
Working with four remote secondary schools, Science teacher Daniel Farrant built a STEM program from scratch around burgeoning industries on his students’ doorstep: offshore wind and remote underwater vehicles being used to survey the seabed.
He ran consultations with teachers and students so the program reflected their needs; and then developed it across numeracy, literacy, computer-aided design, coding, electronics, circuits and 3D printing. The underwater vehicles program connects students with careers in STEM, aligned with industry partners in the regional area.
Students have built their own underwater, with a showcase day to finish. Daniel says the program “pushed students to go well above what they thought they could do and they rose to those high expectations in ways that even surprised their accompanying teachers”.
Three years of conservation work with students at Hellyer College
Since he was young, Alex Stokes has been involved with Friends of Don Reserve, a community group in Devonport that picks up rubbish, pulls weeds and plants natives.
Becoming a teacher through the Leadership Development Program, he realised there was an excellent opportunity to connect his school with the local group, not only to increase its impact, but to instil values of volunteering and care for the environment in his students.
Teaching Creating Connections B at Hellyer College – a class for students who have had issues at school – he took the opportunity and set up a partnership with Burnie Council.
Three years on, his students have planted 1,500 native plants, collected 1.5 tonnes of rubbish from reserves and parks and removed 200kg of weeds from local beaches. Around 200 students have done work experience or volunteering through it, and one has gone on to study environmental science.
Thanks to Alex, it is now a fixed part of the school’s outdoor education program.
Saxophonist and educator Jesse Bowden knows teaching is about more than music. After his students’ observations led him to seek an ADHD diagnosis, he gained a new understanding of himself and his practice. Now, he’s using that insight to create classes where students feel safe to experiment, fail and grow.
Teach For Australia have hosted the second ever Jane Hansen TFA Alumni Awards, to honour outstanding contributions in the classroom, school and system leadership.
