EDUCATED 2027

Education is everyone’s responsibility, and next February the Fogarty Foundation’s annual event EDUCATED invites educators, policymakers, school leaders, community advocates and sector partners to join the conversation and help shape the future of education in WA. Hosted by the Foundation, an organisation with a quarter of a century’s experience in education, EDUCATED 2027 asks what makes a mind future ready. Creativity and critical thinking are widely recognised as essential skills for a modern world, but they are not produced by any single subject area. Foundations such as the arts, reading and civic awareness all play a role in developing them, and STEM is equally important in building the problem-solving skills young people need to think critically. It is the combination of these areas, not any one alone, that grows a future-ready mind. Education is often structured around separate subject silos, with STEM and the arts treated as distinct tracks, yet in practice, creativity and critical thinking are built at the intersections between them: through the reasoning STEM provides, the interpretation and expression the arts provide, and the perspective that comes from reading and community engagement. This is the argument EDUCATED 2027 sets out to make, and it reflects a thread already running through the Foundation’s portfolio, where initiatives across science, arts and community sit alongside each other. Attendees will hear from:

• Keynote speaker Peter Ellerton , Curriculum Director of the University of Queensland Critical Thinking Project and a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and Education .

• Followed by a panel discussion with a selection of the Foundation’s valued partners and collaborators who deliver education initiatives on the ground.

• The event will be closed by the STEM Educator of the Year winner of the Premier’s Science Awards, celebrating the next generation of thinkers, makers and doers.

About your host: Fogarty Foundation- “Creating opportunity, realising potential” The Fogarty Foundation is a philanthropic organisation dedicated to driving transformative change through education in WA. We are committed to ensuring that all young people in Western Australia have the opportunity to receive high quality education. We work across the spectrum of the community enabling high quality school leadership, supporting the delivery of the foundations of learning through to future ready skills and capabilities.