I became increasingly frustrated with a system trying to fit square pegs into round holes.

Writing your own bio is a tough gig! So, I’m giving you my story instead.

My professional journey started in the arts industry. Like every lover of theatre, I went off bright eyed and bushy tailed to drama school and spent most of my waking hours in dressing rooms rehearsals and tech-runs. I graduated in 2001 and moved to Melbourne where I worked in theatre, film and television. 

In 2005, my father, who was a principal of a remote Indigenous independent community school in the West Kimberly (WA), asked if I would be interested in devising a work with Indigenous young people. I was “between gigs” and let’s face it as an actor, I needed the money, so I agreed. 

The project took an asset-based approach, and included the telling of traditional stories by local Elders, which was then translated through a contemporary lens with the use of rap, break dance and hip-hop music and performed at the opening of the Laarri gallery (a CDP initiative). The program was a success, increasing school attendance, social inclusion and promoting community participation.

What I didn’t expect was, somewhere out there in the red dust, I found something that fed my soul more than theatre and resulted in the birth of my first business—Troupe Kidz. 

Troupe Kidz went on to facilitate programs to over 200,000 young people across Australia through partnerships with the Department of Corrections, schools, community service organisations, and in remote community settings across the Northern Territory and West Kimberly regions. Working across a range of remote settings developed my cultural awareness and competency and resulted in genuine and purposeful knowledge exchange. I learnt to engage sensitively on collaborative projects where understanding culture through the correct lens was imperative to achieving identified outcomes. 

I established the Troupe mentor programs, training young people to become Troupe facilitators resulting in employment and pathway opportunities for some of the most marginalised young people. For many young people, Troupe Kidz was family and some participants continued to work with us for over 10 years and still pop in for dinner from time to time.

In 2011, Mick and I were approached by Brad Green (SEDA Director) to write the SEDA Arts Program. This program aimed to engage students disengaged from mainstream education in an arts learning environment, which culminated in the completion of a Certificate III, IV and Diploma qualification over three years. Establishing partnerships with major arts partners including Arena Theatre Company, St Martins Youth Theatre and Clearlight Productions, SEDA provided students with tangible learning experiences delivered alongside contextualised, fit-for-purpose curriculum. Both Mick and I went on to teach in the program while facilitating Troupe Programs alongside our teaching load. SEDA provided me with a deeper understanding of how to modify learning experiences to suit the needs of learners. And upon listening to the stories of my students regarding their journeys through mainstream education settings, I became increasingly frustrated with a system trying to fit square pegs into round holes. As a result, I went on to study education, specialising in applied learning and graduating with a lifetime membership to the Golden Key International Honours Society. 

Education, specifically moving away from the linear mainstream model and embracing the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework focusing on the learner experience, became my prime focus. This work extended to teaching at leading universities across global, urban and social studies faculties and eventually led me back to the red dust in the central desert region working alongside Anangu communities and as the Learning Coordinator at the National Indigenous Training Academy in the Northern Territory. 

Again, square pegs and round roles were abundant. 

I decided to study a Professional Certificate of Positive Behaviour and Learning at the Melbourne University Graduate School of Education and graduated with First Class Honours in 2021. Which leads me to today. 

NMC inclusive was born from frustration, but also the unwavering desire to do better. Not only for learners that required targeted intervention, who needed contextualised content, who needed connection to community, to Country, to culture, but for the countless professionals wanting to capture these principles in their own roles, workplaces and service provision. 

And the need for this to be reflected in learning design, teaching materials, strategic planning and most importantly, in outcomes. 

NMC inclusive started with listening. We listened to learners, to parents, to communities, to organisations and to evidence-based best practice and developed a model designed to fit square pegs into square holes and achieve outcomes leading to long term systemic and societal change. 

We are proud to be changing the landscape of learning—albeit with a little red dust between our toes. 

Like many of us, my path to this point has been a strange and winding journey. 

Like Nat, I too began in the performing arts, studying theatre performance at the University of Tasmania and playing gigs around Launceston as a solo acoustic singer-songwriter. I graduated in 2000 and quickly relocated to Naarm (Melbourne) to tap into the much richer arts scene on ‘the mainland’. In Naarm, I focused on music and music production, completing a Bachelor of Engineering Technology (audio engineering) in 2003 and was working in the prominent South Melbourne recording studio, Metropolis Audio. From here, I joined an up and coming Melbourne band, and began touring the east coast of Australia, and between 2006-2009 was intermittently travelling and touring with the band to Europe, UK, Canada and the USA. I learned a lot in this time, about running a small business on a shoestring, about myself and the motivations of others. 

But I’m a lifelong learner. I love to discover new things, learn new ideas, challenge what I currently think and find new ways to learn.  

I left the rock’n’roll lifestyle behind me, choosing to enrol in a Graduate Diploma of Secondary Education with Victoria University (VU) to gain a formal teaching qualification and begin working in education. 

It was at this time in June 2010, with the strong urging of my partner Nat, that I ventured to the Central Desert region on a month-long project with Alcoota School at Engawala (Alyawarr and Eastern Arrernte language groups), 200km north-east of Mparntwe (Alice Springs). The project—called SWIRL (Story Writing In Remote Locations)—involved working with local primary-aged young people to develop simple written stories that reflected their life on community. There was no written literature available to them in English that reflected their life in Engawala, and the young people loved to share their stories of footy and bush food and daily life. For them to see their stories in print was exciting. It was here that I recognised the power of storytelling for driving educational engagement; all the while, meeting key literacy outcomes. I quickly realised that storytelling and context can fundamentally change a learning experience. 

Upon graduation from VU in 2010, I secured a role with the College of Sound and Music Production as the National Manager of the Tech Production Network—a network of schools and teachers across Australia who were designing and delivering vocational (VET) music and music production qualifications in schools. I travelled regularly to meet with the teachers and was able to combine my love of music, audio production, travelling and education in one handy job. At the same time, Nat and I were working closely developing Troupe Kidz projects that were meeting social and emotional outcomes and re-engaging young people with education. Again, we used storytelling—beatboxing, slam poetry, music, visual arts—to engage and empower these young people.  

In 2012, I joined Nat to develop the SEDA Arts program, spanning Certificate III, IV and Diploma courses. The core driver of this program was (you guessed it) to contextualise learning for disengaged and marginalised young people who were struggling with the industrialised, cookie-cutter educational approaches that prevail in many schools today. As I developed the VET curriculum, which is often seen as bland, dry or generic, I found myself thinking back to SWIRL, thinking back to telling stories and making this curriculum meaningful to those who are in the learner’s seat. So we asked them questions. We created learning experiences with our students, and we asked them to tell their stories, to shape the learning collaboratively.

My next big career transition began in 2017, I discovered a new area of education that was growing rapidly—online learning design. It was technology, education, innovation and learning all bundled into an online delivery model. What I love about the online learning space is the accessibility and flexibility that it offers its learners. Anywhere. Anytime. You set the timetable. Make it work for you. In a way, the design aspect is a lot like music production—trial and error, best practice, finding the right tools for the job—and it’s a creative space, so I fit right in. I quickly rose through the ranks at OES to become Lead Learning Designer in 2019 and have rapidly broadened my experience in leadership, project management, people management and best-practice online pedagogy. It’s here that I’ve been able to work on and lead projects that feature trauma-informed learning design, accessibility and scalability, early intervention and support initiatives for remote learners and First-in-Family (FIF) students. 

While still working remotely with OES, the move to Uluru in September 2020 was a watershed moment for NMC inclusive, although we didn’t realise it at the time. It was clear that the distinct lack of support, cultural nuance and awareness of contextualised learning opportunities, particularly for Indignenous learners, sorely needed to be addressed. The seeds were sown, plans were sketched and NMC was gathering steam.

In 2021, to formalise my industry experience, I enrolled in a Graduate Diploma of Digital Learning Leadership with Deakin University. A key feature of this study pathway is the opportunity to conduct some research and I’m excited to explore trauma-informed learning design while embedding Indigenous perspectives into existing educational models of teaching and learning.

But at the heart of it, the best learning for me always happened in real time, on the job, in context.