Interviewer:

Today, this interview is taking place on Kaurna Country, and pay our respects to Elders past and present. My name's Shane, and I have the pleasure of talking with Jacqui van Ruiten today, the newly crowned Director of Workforce Capability. Niina marni.

Jacqui van Ruiten:

Marni'ai.

Interviewer:

Yes. Thanks for coming along. Welcome to Orbis, your new position as Director of Workforce Capability. You have an oversight of Orbis and we've seen you here before as a participant, and now we're-

Jacqui van Ruiten:

Absolutely.

Interviewer:

... graced to have you leading us on the way. Look, just give us a bit of a background. Tell us about yourself.

Jacqui van Ruiten:

Absolutely, Shane. Hello, I'm Jacqui van Ruiten. I am now the Director of Workforce Capability, as you've said, and I've come from Norwood International High School, where I was a principal there for almost 9 years. I have had a really rich professional journey through education. So, starting out in the country almost 35 years ago as a teacher of mathematics and German, and then moving around the country and coming back to Adelaide. I've been a principal in 4 different.. sorry, 3 different schools, but a leader for probably around about 30 years. So education has very much been my passion. Every day I've embraced the opportunity to be able to connect with young people and families, and most importantly, be able to build capacity, aim to build capacity in my teachers so that they can be better practitioners and provide the best learning experiences for our learners and my students.

I loved what I was doing. I'm probably at the stage that I was thinking, "What's next?" I felt that through the experience of being a principal, we do connect with so many people and can influence and impact the work of others, but this was an opportunity that I felt that it was really far more and far wide-reaching. So when I heard about this position, I thought, "This is something that I'd love to be able to do." And I must say it has been such a wonderful challenge, but also an exciting journey so far over the last 3 months.

Interviewer:

So coming from a school setting, you're on the ground, working with staff and working what's getting kids to thrive.

Jacqui van Ruiten:

Yes.

Interviewer:

Now that you're in this role, how can you or what do you see you can leverage off of or leverage towards achieving in the broader role, but also for Orbis as well?

Jacqui van Ruiten:

Certainly. So my role is actually as Director of Workforce Capability is Orbis, its Organisational Development and also the Learning and Development teams. Our role is to develop the capacity and capabilities of the workforce. Of course, here at Orbis, we're working with educators and leaders to empower other people, but most importantly change some of our practice. I see that the opportunities here and what we are doing here at Orbis have actually changed over the years, as many people would know. Our programs are responsive to the needs of our educators, but most importantly as well and responsive to the needs of our students, which of course are connected to the strategy for public education.

I'm excited by how we're developing our leaders, particularly the middle leaders and other interested leaders through the Future Leaders programs, also the Leading Future Learning programs. In fact, there is a suite of so many different opportunities. I look forward to how we can now review all of the programs that we are currently delivering, and thinking about what professional learning can look like to ensure that everybody has the capacity and capability to drive the strategy effectively, and our young people can thrive in their learning.

Interviewer:

Norwood International's had a long relationship with Orbis.

Jacqui van Ruiten:

Yes.

Interviewer:

What's the response from them that you've heard as a principal to the work and the programs that are happening here at Orbis?

Jacqui van Ruiten:

I think, firstly, there has been always been an opportunity in the school to embrace professional learning, and we have encouraged our staff to look at professional learning opportunities, particularly at Orbis. So they've been supported to be able to do that. I appreciate that's not always the case in every site, and that releasing teachers can be a challenge. And that was also for, of course, at Norwood. However, when our teachers did have the opportunity to come to Orbis and to connect with other educators, to learn from each other, I think that's probably one of the strengths of being here at Orbis. But having the quality and the outstanding consultants or experts who are in the room, the facilitators have been able to really connect with them, they've come back with excitement, they've come back with new ideas, and a reinvigorated passion to be able to deliver something new.

In fact, right now, we're actually working on a co-design process to explore new professional learning strategy. And the focus of this strategy will be, first of all, to identify the necessary skills and capabilities that we want our educators and leaders to have to be equipped with to enact the strategy. We understand that we have to recognise these capabilities and then be able to build the appropriate professional learning that will support them to be effective in the classroom within their sites.

So what that looks like, we're not sure. I mean, I could have all of these different ideas, but it's so important that we're responsive to the needs of our teachers and our leaders in their sites. So we want to actually connect with a range of stakeholders, listen to them, understand and unpack what those capabilities, dispositions, mindsets are that are required. Perhaps look at what are the gaps that we need to explore, and then what's the role of professional learning within this, and what does it look like, but also what doesn't it look like? So now we've got an opportunity to think about professional learning across the system, professional learning and how we can connect with everybody and ensure that equity and access is available, but also that there's a rich engagement, mentoring, sharing, and opportunity for everybody.

Interviewer:

So you've just started the role, Jacqui. What are you really looking forward to?

Jacqui van Ruiten:

Well, for the past 2 months, I've really enjoyed learning more about the role, and obviously Orbis itself. It's funny, I actually thought that I knew a lot about Orbis, and I guess I do. But since coming in, I have been amazed by the breadth of opportunity, the range of programs that Orbis provides, and the rich connections and partnerships that Orbis have with a range of stakeholders, consultants, experts around the world to... What we provide is absolutely evidence-informed. So I think our next stage will be to continue to refine, review our work, strengthen our work.

We are very keen to learn what the professional learning strategy will look like and what that means for Orbis. But in the meantime, until that happens, we'll continue to actually offer amazing programs. We do need to listen to our people. We understand that there are a range of different programs that people would like delivered, but of course, it's about how we can provide quality programs in a timely manner to diverse cohorts across our system, not to very, very small groups. So that's where our work is right now. But we are keen to explore other opportunities for 2025 and beyond.

Interviewer:

So, principals, leaders, teachers, directors.

Jacqui van Ruiten:

Everyone.

Interviewer:

Look out.

Jacqui van Ruiten:

Exactly. That's right.

Interviewer:

We are going to have something for you.

Jacqui van Ruiten:

Absolutely.

Interviewer:

Well, Jacqui, thank you very much for coming in today and sharing some of your insights into where you've come from, your pathways getting here, and some of the opportunities that you see Orbis can provide to our wonderful education community out there.

Jacqui van Ruiten:

Thank you very much, Shane.