If education were invented today…
would we build the same schools?

In this adventure you will travel to County Clare on the west coast of Ireland. There, high up on the cliffs, overlooking the churning Atlantic Ocean, stands the grand old Rose Hotel.

But this is no ordinary hotel - there is treasure buried somewhere within its ancient walls. Nobody has yet succeeded in finding it. But now you, Agent X, and your siblings have arrived. Perhaps you will be the lucky ones to solve the mystery and find the hidden jewels?

Join this workshop to see how the integration of maths, crafts and mystery stories results in an exciting, hands-on, innovative STEM learning experience.

This is just one of many stories in the Maths Detectives series, created by maths teacher and former UCT maths lecturer, Dani Abrams. Dani is passionate about bringing creativity and multisensory exploration to the STEM education space.

As technology continues to transform education, teachers need practical approaches for designing learning experiences that are meaningful, inclusive, and future-focused. This interactive workshop explores how digital pedagogy can support deeper learning, critical thinking, creativity, and learner agency. Drawing on an integrated framework that combines Fink's Significant Learning Model, Bloom's Taxonomy, TPACK, the AI Assessment Scale (AIAS), and principles from cognitive science, participants will examine how curriculum, pedagogy, and technology can work together to create engaging learning environments. Participants will explore strategies for inclusive practice, multimodal learning, AI-enhanced teaching, metacognitive reflection, and psychologically safe classrooms. Through a collaborative design challenge, educators will redesign a lesson or assessment using practical planning tools and peer feedback protocols. Attendees will leave with a clear framework for intentional digital pedagogy, actionable strategies for integrating AI meaningfully, and leveraging existing resources for immediate application in their own teaching contexts.

Difficult. Defiant. Attention-seeking. Lazy. Immature. Disruptive. Anxious. We are quick to label children, but what if the behaviour we see is only the visible part of a much bigger story?

What if “defiance” is communicating overwhelm, “attention-seeking” is really a search for connection, or “won’t” sometimes means “can’t yet”? This conversation invites educators across phases to pause before labelling behaviour and become curious about what lies beneath it.

Drawing on Bernard Aucouturier’s Psychomotor Practice, alongside development, regulation, movement, play and relationships, we will explore how children communicate through far more than words. Through practical examples, cross-phase scenarios, research, humour and classroom reflections, educators will be challenged to reconsider the stories they tell about children.

The key takeaway is simple: before asking, “How do I stop this behaviour?” ask, “What is this child trying to tell me?”

Most schools can only offer one-size-fits-all guidance, yet choosing a subject, a mentor, or a university path is one of the highest-leverage decisions a teenager will ever make. This session asks a Redefine-worthy question: what if every student, regardless of school size, budget, or postcode, had a verified mentor, a global university map, and a structured subject guide just one click away? Drawing on ConnectEdu, a platform used by students aged 13+ worldwide, this talk explores how a research-based subject interest survey, an interactive 3D university globe, 29 in-app subject guides, and safe mentor messaging can close the guidance gap at scale, without adding significant cost or workload for already-stretched schools. Attendees will leave with a practical model for rethinking what "guidance" means when technology, not geography or budget, determines what a student can discover about their own future.

This workshop explores how intentional play-based learning can support the development of emotional intelligence in young children. Drawing on findings from a classroom-based case study, the session will examine the educator's role in intentionally fostering emotional awareness, emotional vocabulary, empathy, and self-regulation through meaningful play experiences. Participants will be introduced to the Friday Feels intervention and the practical strategies used to embed emotional learning into everyday classroom practice.

Participants will take part in a live Friday Feels circle, experiencing the activity from the perspective of the children. Using emotion cards, they will identify and discuss emotions, explore simple co-regulation strategies, and reflect on how intentional questioning can deepen children's emotional understanding. The session will conclude with practical ideas for adapting the Friday Feels approach to suit a variety of childhood classroom contexts.

Are we asking children to read, think and learn before they are developmentally ready?

Increasing numbers of children are reaching the intermediate and senior phases without secure reading and spelling skills. UNESCO estimates that 67% of children globally cannot read and understand a simple text by the end of Grade 4. At the same time, AI is transforming how information is accessed, making the ability to question, analyse, infer and evaluate more important than ever. But can children engage meaningfully with these demands if reading itself remains effortful?

Drawing on neuroscience, reading science, cognitive load theory and over two decades of experience working with struggling readers, this interactive session challenges some of our assumptions about literacy, curriculum expectations and technological progress.

Participants will experience the cognitive load of a struggling reader and explore whether we are accelerating expectations at the expense of strong foundations - and what we might do differently.

Adolescents navigating school in our current climate face a melting pot of pressure, anxiety and insecurity. At a systemic level, schools’ focus on achievement over process perpetuates a culture of box ticking within which our adolescents typically forget or don’t have time to derive true meaning from the activities they are doing or have forgotten why they are doing them in the first place. Add to this an increasingly complex world of AI, social media, pervasive screen use, climate change and a changing world of work, and it is unsurprising that adolescent health and wellbeing it at an all-time low. Schools have a responsibility to responsive to this, given our dual role as both educators and carers: It is our responsibility as schools to be deliberate about designing systems that not only value process over outcome, but aligned with this, allow the pupil voice to inform both learning and program design. DSG Lifestyle is a wellness program that is co-designed by the girls of DSG. Their voice has been instrumental in the design of an academic program which focusses on the teaching of, and immersing in, healthy habits that promote lifelong health and wellbeing. Over three years, regular feedback and analysis thereof have allowed for the creation of a program which is both holistic, and flexible in its approach to learning: feedback has shaped not only the content, but also the venues used, and the way in which the sessions are run. Learnings from the girls suggest that immersive sessions within less conventional spaces, where there is flexibility in space, types of engagement and activity are preferred, and importantly those that create meaningful time for engagement, reflection and rest. The co-creation of this program has allowed us as educators to have an impact on how girls approach day-to-day life and thus have an opportunity to model these behaviours as they move through their school years. Our hope is that this will shape the adults they become, and how they parent the next generation. This presentation will share learnings from this co-design process, and how and why programs like this are fundamental in preparing our adolescents for the uncertain world they find themselves in.

As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly integrated into education, it is essential that students learn to use these tools responsibly and critically. This study investigates students’ perceptions and understanding of AI before and after completing a portfolio task that required engagement with AI through four different levels of use. Reflective responses were collected before and after the task to examine changes in attitudes and understanding.

The findings show that almost all students developed a different perception of AI following the activity. While AI supported improved academic performance, many students demonstrated limited understanding of AI-generated content, suggesting insufficient engagement with the material. The study highlights both the opportunities and challenges associated with AI in education. Although AI can be a valuable learning tool, students must continue to develop independent thinking and subject knowledge, particularly in assessment contexts where AI support is unavailable. The findings emphasise the need for intentional instruction in AI literacy as a core educational skill.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping education through personalized learning, adaptive instruction, and data-driven teaching practices. However, geography teaching in many secondary schools remains predominantly teacher-centred, often limiting learner engagement and academic achievement. This study proposes the development of an AI-supported Geography Teaching Framework to enhance learner engagement and improve learning outcomes through the meaningful integration of AI technologies. Guided by the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework and Constructivist Learning Theory, the study adopts a Design-Based Research (DBR) approach to design, implement, and refine the framework in authentic classroom settings. The framework incorporates AI-enabled tools such as adaptive learning platforms, intelligent tutoring systems, automated formative assessment, geospatial visualization applications, and learning analytics to support differentiated instruction and timely feedback. Using a mixed-methods evaluation, the study aims to produce a practical, context-sensitive framework that strengthens learner engagement, improves academic achievement, and supports effective AI integration in secondary school geography education.

What if the most powerful thing we do for children has nothing to do with curriculum?

Research consistently shows that a child's mindset – their belief about their own intelligence and capability predicts academic outcomes more reliably than IQ. Yet most of our attention as educators and parents focuses on what children learn, not on the invisible message we communicate every day about who they are and what they are capable of.

This session introduces The POP™ Mindset framework – Power, Optimism and Perseverance – a practical, neuroscience-grounded approach to transforming how we show up for children in the moments that matter most.

Every child arrives with extraordinary potential. Whether that potential gets unlocked depends not on their ability – but on what the adults around them believe is possible.

This presentation situates diverse contemporary schooling models along a continuum from child-led unschooling to highly regulated “no-excuses” schools. It considers unschooling, Sudbury and democratic schools, homeschooling, Reggio Emilia-inspired education, Nonviolent Communication-based approaches, project-based learning, Krishnamurti-inspired schools, Montessori and Dalton education, Waldorf/Steiner schools, Sri Aurobindo schools and others. Drawing on Neil Postman’s critique of schooling’s hidden curriculum and Everett Reimer’s critical examination of schooling as an institution, the presentation explores how institutional structures, school ethos, and curriculum differ along this schooling continuum. Using Kairos School of Inquiry as a case study, the paper proposes a generative middle ground: a principled synthesis of competing educational philosophies that preserves curricular coherence while challenging inherited conventions. It argues that such intentional integration offers a promising institutional approach for twenty-first-century schooling.

We stop playing far too early. When school turns serious, play is pushed out, and with it vocabulary, listening, empathy, confidence. On NASA's creativity measure, 98% of five year olds score as creative geniuses; 2% of adults do.

We all agree children learn through play, until we define it in the classroom. The performing arts, drama, dance, song, storytelling, are its beating heart: impossible to get wrong. No fear, only empowerment, for child and teacher.

Learning in the round: full body play, reflection, the why behind each technique. No arts training required, inclusive by design, for the neurodiverse child who learns through the body and all the senses.

Participants leave with ready to use techniques for any topic and age. The human counterweight to classrooms leaning into AI.

Literacy is not the responsibility of the language classroom alone; learners must read, interpret and communicate increasingly complex ideas across the curriculum. This school-based research initiative emerged from Grade 6 literacy screening that identified concerns in written expression and comprehension. Drawing on research into reading, spelling and writing, including orthographic knowledge, phoneme–grapheme relationships, morphology, automatic word recognition and Self-Regulated Strategy Development, the inquiry explored how research could inform classroom practice. Findings informed a developmental Grade 6–9 literacy progression and a whole-school professional learning programme centred on the principle that every teacher is a language teacher. Teachers examine the literacy demands of their disciplines and develop subject-specific approaches to support vocabulary, comprehension, analysis, inference and writing. The initiative adopts a continuous cycle of screening, intervention, monitoring and adjustment, positioning literacy improvement as an ongoing process of professional inquiry and shared responsibility.

Children are among the most vulnerable participants in urbanisation, yet planners and place-makers often overlook their perspectives. This presentation explores how child participation can extend learning beyond the classroom, creating cross-disciplinary and experiential connections between Urban and Regional Planning, education, children’s rights and community engagement. Drawing on experiences of children’s participation in the development of the Paterson Park Multipurpose Centre and the proposed revitalisation of an alleyway by Mimosa School learners, the presentation considers how Reggio Emilia principles, including the pedagogy of listening, the image of the capable child, and the environment as a “third teacher”, can inform participatory planning. These experiences reveal a gap between policy and practice: children’s needs may be recognised, but meaningful participation remains limited. The presentation advocates observation, dialogue and co-design as approaches to strengthen student learning and create meaningful opportunities for children to shape more inclusive urban and rural spaces.

How can coding and robotics move beyond teaching technical skills to become a tool for developing critical thinking? This hands on session invites educators to experience this approach through a station rotation built around Explore, Learn and Create.

Participants will rotate through three experiences: Sphero robotics, app prototyping and creative coding. Each challenge encourages observation, problem solving, testing, analysis and iteration. Participants will experience how debugging can become a structured thinking process rather than simply fixing errors, using a Socratic debugging routine to question intent, identify where logic diverges and make purposeful changes.

The session connects these experiences to a classroom model where errors become learning opportunities and coding is embedded across learning areas. Educators will leave with strategies for developing critical thinking through coding and robotics.

What if creative thinking isn’t something students simply “have” - but something we can deliberately teach, develop and assess?

We know the importance of critical thinking. We plan for it, teach it and assess it. But are we giving creative thinking the same attention?

This hands-on workshop invites you to explore what happens when we put creative thinking at the heart of lesson design. Using Redhill School as a starting point for an ongoing research journey, we’ll challenge our thinking about what creative thinking looks like in the classroom and how intentionally we create opportunities for students to generate ideas, make connections, experiment, take risks and see possibilities.

And you won’t just be talking about creative thinking - you’ll experience it!

Come ready to question, experiment, collaborate and create. Together, we’ll transform everyday lessons into opportunities for creativity and explore practical strategies you can take straight back to your classroom.

Leave inspired, equipped and ready to rethink how you teach creative thinking!

If we could start again and design a school for the children sitting in our classrooms today, would we build what we have now?

This interactive session asks us to look honestly at schooling - not to dismiss what works, but to question what we may simply have become used to. What must we preserve? What needs to be rethought? And what are we brave enough to redesign?

Grounded in South African classrooms, the session explores curriculum, teaching and learning, assessment, teacher preparation and the purpose of schooling itself. Participants will challenge familiar assumptions, test ideas against classroom realities and ask a harder question: are our schools preparing young people not only to pass, but to think, adapt, contribute and thrive in a fast-changing world?

How do we prepare young people not only to understand democracy, but to practise it? This performance lecture introduces Embodied Democratic Pedagogy, an emerging framework that uses physical theatre to cultivate agency, collaboration, critical thinking and collective imagination. It begins with The Desert Station, a collaboratively devised physical theatre work created with secondary school learners. Emerging from an exploration of the 1976 Soweto Uprising, the democratic transition of 1994 and the experiences of South Africa’s post-apartheid generation, the work asks what comes after remembrance and how young people might negotiate inherited histories while imagining democratic futures. Through physical improvisation, ensemble composition and embodied reflection, learners encounter complex social questions through their bodies and relationships. A facilitated presentation and discussion following the performance unpacks these processes, positioning physical theatre as a form of experiential learning through which democratic participation can be rehearsed, negotiated and ultimately embodied.

Addressing critical funding gaps in South African education demands innovative, sustainable financing models. This interactive 1-hour workshop introduces school leaders, educators, and parents to digital crowdfunding, empowering them to mobilise community resources effectively.

Participants will begin with an operational overview of the GetGo platform, backed by real-world case studies. You will then participate in a hands-on exercise to draft a campaign pitch for a school need, learning to balance compelling storytelling with structural transparency and accountability. The session features a gamified pitching activity to simulate real-world donor decision-making, followed by a guided debrief.

Attendees will leave equipped with actionable marketing strategies, insights into leveraging social media, and an understanding of how to use "campaign champions" to maximise reach. You will also discover how GetGo builds donor trust by offering incentives like Section 18A tax certificates and B-BBEE points to drive long-term support and learner success.

How Does Inclusion Hold Hands with Democracy?

Inclusion is often framed as accommodating diverse learners. In this workshop, we explore a bolder view: inclusion as democracy.

When drafting a new Safeguarding Policy at Mimosa School, our Reggio-inspired ethos led us to frame it as an ongoing relational practice. Viewing children as competent citizens and rights-bearers, we placed their voices at the core of policy development.

Educators engaged students aged 18 months to 9 years using the "hundred languages" to explore fundamental questions:

What does it mean to feel safe?

What feels unsafe?

What is shared responsibility?

We will share practical ways inclusion creates democratic spaces for young learners to co-create school vision and governance. Participants will analyze children's insights through interactive scenarios and leave with actionable strategies to meaningfully embed student voice into institutional decision-making.

How do we move young people from simply using AI to understanding, questioning and shaping it? Teens in AI works with schools, educators and partners to help young people build practical AI literacy, confidence and responsible innovation skills. This session will introduce our work and share AI Adventures, our accessible programme designed to bring AI learning into schools through engaging, age-appropriate experiences. The main focus will be GAIT, the Global AI Techathon, which gives young people the opportunity to work in teams, explore real-world challenges and develop AI-powered solutions with purpose. We will look at how the programme can be delivered with schools, how educators and partners can get involved, and why challenge-based learning can help students develop not only technical understanding, but also creativity, collaboration, critical thinking and a stronger sense of agency in an AI-shaped world.