About Great Schools Australia
Great Schools Australia is a non profit organisation that exists to:
“Enhance the quality of lives of the children and youth of Australia through creating great schools.”
The best way we do this is using an approach described by Michael Fullan as ‘exciting and inspiring’.
It is called Future Search and it has been widely used in North American schools and school districts and is now emerging in Australia.
We also provide a range of other free and non-free services.
Our aim is to bring our services to Schools based on ability to pay. To that end, we have created the Great Schools Fund to support those schools who wish to use our services but are unable to afford our fees.
About the Founder
Great Schools Australia is the creation of Joe Bowers. Joe brings to Great Schools Australia his combined experience in business and education, thus enabling schools to experience the best business practices but delivered in a manner suitable for schools.
Joe has qualifications in economics and law and is a former partner of PriceWaterhouseCoopers who was in charge of the Sydney Indirect Tax Division with 45 people and $10M turnover.
He has also been a former TAFE teacher, a coach of Secondary School Students and a teacher of personal development courses. He is supported by a range of national and international consultants including former school principals.
Joe is also the Founder of the Australian Future Search Network.
For 8 years, he sole parented his 4 children who attended schools in Sydney. For 3 years he was President of the Parents & Friends Association at St Anthony’s, Marsfield.
International Support Consultant
In addition to a range of local consultants, Australian schools can benefit from the involvement in our work of one of the leading international educational consultants in this field in the form of US based Professor Nancy Aronson.
Nancy completed her PhD in Psychoeducational Processes and pioneered the early work in shared decision making in education in Pennsylvania and Kansas City.
She facilitated at the President’s Summit for America’s Future in Philadelphia and was special consultant for the book Future Search in School District Change: Connection, Community, and Results (Leading Systemic School Improvement) - featured to the right.
Nancy is a partner in Arscht/Aronson. A representative sample of their larger clients include Education Commission of the United States, Kansas State Department of Education, School District of Philadelphia, Upper Dublin School District, Oakhill Elementary School, Harrisburg School District, Downingtown Area School District, , The Learning Exchange, Lower Merion School District, University of Kansas, University of Southern California, and Georgetown University.
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Coming 2009!
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News and Events
Advanced Meeting Leadership Workshop for Leaders and Consultants, with internationally renowned US authors and consultants Marv Weisbord and Sandra Janoff of Future Search fame. Sydney. October 2008. Large discounts for first 20 registrants!
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