ACEL National Conference 2026

BTS Spark will be at the ACEL National Conference in Perth from 30 September to 2 October. We would love to hear what you are working on.

About the conference

The ACEL National Conference is the flagship annual event of the Australian Council for Educational Leaders, and one of the largest gatherings of school and system leaders in the country. In 2026 it moves to Western Australia, at the Rendezvous Hotel Perth Scarborough on the coast north of the city.

This year's theme is “the future of education leadership starts here”, and the program is organised around three strands. Boldness looks at navigating complexity with courage and agency: taking informed risks, questioning established practice, and making room for innovation. Leadership examines expanding who leads and how, with a focus on distributed and relational leadership across roles, contexts and identities. New Frontiers turns to reimagining education for an uncertain future, including technological change, equity and sustainability.

Across the three days the program moves between keynotes, panels, provocations, workshops and four rounds of concurrent sessions, with breakfast sessions and Coastal Connections receptions in between. The full line-up is on the ACEL website.

Why this conference, and why now

Those three strands describe the conditions school and system leaders are already working in, not a future they are preparing for. Leaders are being asked to make decisions with incomplete information, hold a community together through change, distribute leadership to people who did not expect to be leading, and do all of it while the ground keeps moving.

That is the work we support every day. Professional development gives leaders a regular, confidential space to think clearly about the decision in front of them, test their own assumptions, and choose how they want to lead rather than react. It is not a course to complete. It is thinking time with someone who has no agenda other than the leader's own growth.

The questions ACEL is putting on the agenda in Perth are the ones our coaches hear in sessions: how do I lead when I don't have the answer, how do I build capability in the people around me, how do I stay in this job and stay well.