We speak with Matt Noffs, the co-founder of the Street Universities and CEO of Noffs Foundation, Australia’s largest drug and alcohol treatment service provider for young people under 25. Noffs Foundation works with young people for up to 5 years after leaving residential treatment. The Street Universities work with over 10,000 young people every year, focusing on issues related to drugs, mental health, employment, education and crime. Matt is currently balancing work with a Master’s in Criminal Justice at UNSW and the sleeplessness that comes with growing small children. He was trained in freestyle rap by the young people he works with but feels he is a poor student and that his rapping is sub par.

Matt Noffs

The Educhange Podcast is for the doers in schools, people who are coming up with ideas to make things better for kids

Education

Training

Language Courses

Higher Education

K-12

Educational Technology

Self-Improvement

Beth is currently the Technologies and Innovation Specialist at Coomera Anglican College, and previously worked with ACARA, and was responsible for the implementation of Australian Curriculum in Digital technologies for the North Queensland cluster of schools.  We spoke with Beth earlier in the year about about how we teach technologies well, what is happening at Coomera Anglican College, and about her experiences of working with ACARA.

Beth Claydon - Teaching technologies well

Last week, the Victorian Government announced a school banking ban over accusations the banks were using inappropriate tactics in the programs. With calls for other states to follow, this week on The Educhange Podcast we're talking about financial literacy. We're joined by Fiona Guthrie, the Chief Executive of Financial Counselling Australia, and we discuss how we, as educators, can be be preparing our students for the real world. 

Financial Literacy with Fiona Guthrie

Tony Vallance is a Learning Specialist at Lilydale High School. Tony is passionate about bridging the gap between theory and practice, and developing learning opportunities rooted in the real world with practical applications. In this episode, we talk to Tony about STEAMWorks - a tech learning space he created at the school. We also hear about Tony's mantra in education. 

Engaging students in STEAM with Tony Vallance

Our guest today is Phil Cummins. Phil an Associate Professor of Education at the University of Tasmania, an integral part of the School for Tomorrow and the managing director of the Circle Education group.  The collective conversation this week is: 'Do we spend enough time educating for our students' character?' Charles chats with Phil about character education pedagogy and how we embed character education into all the learning and teaching that’s going on at our school.

Dr Philip SA Cummins on Character Education

Our guest today is Yasodai Selvakumaran. Yaso is a Humanities Teacher and Relieving Head Teacher in Professional Practice at Rooty Hill High School in Sydney’s west. In 2019 Yaso was named as one of the world’s top 10 teachers in the Global Teacher Prize, an award that recognises exceptional teachers who have made outstanding contributions to the teaching profession. In this episode, we talk about why we teach, and what is it that drives our teaching philosophy. You're also going to hear from a few EC community members who shared with us why they teach and what drives them.   Join our collective conversations on our socials to join the conversation. 

Matt Noffs

Download our free app to listen on your phone