In what has been a very tough and interrupted year for all, I am proud to report that the Victorian Association for Philosophy in Schools has adapted and remained strong since our last General Meeting.

A major achievement for the year 2020 was the development and launch of our new website. We had a strong team of volunteers supporting the creation of this new design in collaboration with Pixeld, a local website design company, who we thank for their support in this project. The new website brings clarity, functionality, and a smoothness to the VAPS site so that we can attract more teachers, schools, and educational professionals to support our work. A significant challenge with the old website was the membership system, which is now much cleaner and allows more autonomy in the sign up process. We have had 48 membership sign ups on the new website since launching November, which is an exceptional effort and reward for the hard work put in with the website design. This is addition to the 51 current members we brought over from the old website. In past years we have had membership numbers in excess of 150, but with the considerable struggles with the membership system of the old website we lost many. But I expect our current crop of 99 members to continue growing until we reach and exceed the membership numbers of previous years.

In 2020, we were also able to successfully adapt our VCE Unit 3 & 4 Forums, as well as adding another VCE revision forum at the end of the year. These forums all took place online for the first time and they were warmly welcomed by both teachers and students. The new revision forum, as well as the online format, are examples of the innovations that VAPS Committee Members and volunteers were able to contribute to the association in the wake of the COVID year, and ideas that we will be able to draw on going forward. Additionally, in the VCE sector, we also commissioned a new VCE trial exam paper and mock examiner’s report. My thanks to Lenny Robinson for working with us on this endeavour.

A feature of VAPS every year are our school excursion events. VAPS has run these events for many years and was hoping to move into a year with significant change and expansion over 2020. Now called PIPS events, an acronym for Philosophy in Public Spaces, some of our events have changed their focus to provide more equity for government schools and disadvantaged students to be involved, as well a change away from competition to make the programs more pedagogically sound. Unfortunately, all of our planned events in this space were cancelled for 2020 due to COVID. We have, however, planned an array of PIPS events to come back in 2021 and look forward to engaging teachers, students, and VAPS volunteers to deliver these special events.

The VAPS Professional Learning suite of training was impacted by COVID, with no face-to-face training taking place. However, we managed to run both an Introduction to Community of Inquiry 3-day training, as well as our 5-day Advanced Practice training for teachers and educational leaders – both wholly online. This was a great success and enabled access and participation for many interstate and international teachers to be a part of the VAPS professional learning programs alongside our Victorian teachers.

A major achievement earlier this week was the successful running of the biennial VAPS Conference. We had 60 attendees plus 37 speakers (who also attended many sessions) across the 2 days in an online format, participating and engaging with our 29 different sessions. We had speakers from Victoria, NSW, Queensland, South Australia, France, the U.K., and the U.S. We were strongly represented with a diverse range of speakers from areas including:

Academia; such as lecturers and professors Jen Bleazby, Margaret Cameron, Klaus Jahn, Cullan Joyce, and Tim Bayne
Internationally renowned expert practitioners; such as Roger Sutcliffe, Peter Worley, and Emma Worley
Curriculum professionals; such as Monica Bini
Teacher practitioners; such as Adam Black & Andrew Dabner
Institutional Partners of VAPS; such as David Menzies from the NGV, Liz Suda from Museums Victoria, and Simon Rawson from Zoos Victoria
We also thank representatives from the other state associations that make up FAPSA who contributed to the conference programme, including Lorelei Siegloff, Britta Jenson, Greg Henshaw, and Brenton James
While our own VAPS committee also contributed a wide array of speakers, including Jill Howells, Janette Poulton, Ben Reeves, Sue Knopfelmacher, Bonnie Zuidland, Kristy Forrest, and Tristan Hill. We thank all of you for contributing in such a significant way to the success of this event.
We also thank our eminent keynote speakers: Thomas Wartenberg & Philip Cam for their outstanding contributions to our conference.

I’d also like to thank our institutional partners who have continued to support us and expand our relationship to make room for further growth. For many years, the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Museum, Immigration Museum, and Scienceworks have supported the VAPS PIPS events. Melbourne Zoo has continued to support us with Ethics Trails and teacher professional learning in this area, as well as building a new PIPS event for 2021. The School of Historical and Philosophical Studies (SHAPS) at the University of Melbourne has continued to support our VCE Forums with high calibre academics in philosophy to give our VCE Philosophy students the best forums possible. We thank Brunswick East Primary School for their support in the continued use of their school facilities to host our teacher Professional Learning. We also thank the Department of Education & Training Victoria, who have supported us through the Strategic Partnership Program, which most recently has resulted in funding to support regional and remote teachers, students, and schools to participate in VAPS events, training, and support.

I also wish to thank our committee members as a whole for the enthusiasm and dedication that you all have put forward through this past year. In particular, I’d like to thank our office bearers and Executive Committee.

Janette Poulton: who has been our longstanding Education & Innovations Officer, for her continued work in all facets of VAPS, including managing our PIPS events, VCE Forums, and Professional Learning Programs.
Selena Prior & Ann Pulbrook: who have come on board to help us expand into regional areas of Victoria and have delivered a broad array of development and progress for VAPS that we have not seen before outside of Melbourne.
The VCE Network: Bonnie, Tristan, and Kristy: You have all continued to deliver an exceptional standard of engagement and professional networking for our VCE teachers and students.
Ben Reeves: who has been exemplary in the role of Secretary after coming on board at our last AGM. Ben has been committed and provides energy to the committee and the innovations and creative thinking that we are striving for. I continue to look forward to your innovative ideas into the future.
Dan Nguyen: who also came on board as Treasurer at the last AGM and has done a fantastic job. Having served as Treasurer prior to Dan, I can say it’s certainly one of the harder and more consuming roles to take on at VAPS and Dan has certainly lived up to the challenge with great success.
Jill Howells: who has served as Deputy Chair for the previous two years and continued to contribute to VAPS in innovative ways. Jill has been actively involved in every committee meeting as well as contributing to the success of our professional learning programs, especially in the transition last year to an online format.

This coming year will be another unique year as we try to manage the COVID environment while bringing back our face-to-face learning experiences for teachers and students. I wish the VAPS Committee and incoming Executive Committee all the best paving this path forward for VAPS and bringing more and more philosophy into Victorian schools.

Philosophy in Schools Readings