In March 2025, 165 principals, policymakers, academics, students, parents and union representatives gathered at Parliament House in Canberra for the ASPA National Summit — one of the most significant national conversations about secondary education reform in recent years. This is the report of what they said.
Three themes structured the day: Flourishing Students, Strengthening Leadership, and Transforming Systems. Across all three, a consistent picture emerged. Current secondary schooling is not working for enough young people. Metrics of success are too narrow, curriculum is too rigid, and too many students find themselves in systems that were designed for a different era. The same students who feel disengaged from school are often those the system is most urgently failing — those from disadvantaged communities, rural and remote areas, and those whose capabilities simply do not show up in an ATAR.
The participants were not short of ideas. Personalised learning pathways, micro-credentials and learner profiles, project-based and real-world learning, co-designed curricula, schools as community hubs — these were not fringe proposals but mainstream consensus positions among the people who actually run Australian secondary schools. At the same time, participants were frank about the obstacles: under-resourcing, administrative overload on principals, a system that does not change at the pace of students’ needs, and structural inequities that mean the best opportunities remain concentrated in the most advantaged communities.
For the hub’s focus on Years 7 to 9, this report is a direct and current account of what school leaders across Australia believe needs to change — and why student engagement, wellbeing and genuine flourishing must sit at the centre of any serious reform agenda.