Ambassadors
Good to Great Schools Australia receives support from leaders across government, business, community and education institutions. Our supporters reach out because they believe in what we are trying to achieve and want to help.
Our ambassadors are successful or distinguished people who help promote our work and support us in achieving our vision. Ambassadors share our values and resonate with what we are trying to achieve. They use their profile to raise awareness of our work, help us reach wider audiences and influence our target audiences.
Specialist Ambassadors
Reverend Bill Crews
Reverend Bill Crews is a Uniting Church minister who has worked for many years to support disadvantaged Australians, including the elderly and homeless.
He is Chairman and founder of the Exodus Foundation, co-founder of the First Life Education Centre, and CEO and founder of The Bill Crews Charitable Trust, which operates a literacy program for Indigenous children in the Northern Territory.
Reverend Crews is one of Australia’s 100 National Living Treasures and was awarded an International Paul Harris Fellow by the Rotary Foundation.
Anthony ‘Walla’ McDonald-Tipungwuti
Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti overcame a challenging childhood to become one of the AFL’s most valuable and beloved players. He played 126 games for the Essendon Bombers, developing into one of the league’s best forwards before announcing his retirement in 2022. He made a significant impact throughout his career, booting more than 153 goals.
Anthony is from the Tiwi Islands in the Northern Territory. His grandmother raised him, but when he was 10 years old, she passed away. He had little support and was frequently absent from school, was barely literate, and spoke little English.
As a teenager, Anthony was adopted by Jane McDonald and moved to Gippsland in Victoria. Through hard work, determination and, at long last, support for his learning disability – Anthony made it to Year 11.
Anthony is passionate about using his experience to help other children access the support and learning opportunities that have helped him get to where he is today.
Christopher Pyne
Christopher Pyne was elected to the House of Representatives for the seat of Sturt in 1993. He retired from the Parliament in 2019.
Christopher was a Minister in the Howard, Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments, serving as Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Minister for Defence and Minister for Defence Industry.
In his time as Education Minister, he reformed the national curriculum, introduced compulsory literacy and numeracy testing for Australian teaching graduates, expanded explicit instruction teaching in remote schools in northern Australia, and delivered the National Innovation and Science Agenda. In 2006, he founded ‘headspace: the Youth Mental Health Initiative’.
Before entering Parliament, Christopher practised as a solicitor.
Dr Karl Kruszelnicki
Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, a qualified scientist, doctor and engineer, is Australia’s most well-known science communicator.
Dr Karl has won a number of prestigious awards throughout his career. He was one of the first Australian Apple Masters recipients, recognised for changing the world through his passion and vision, while inspiring new approaches to creative thinking.
He has been honoured with a prestigious Ig Nobel prize awarded by Harvard University, an Australian Father of the Year Award, Member of the Order of Australia Award and a Skeptic of the Year Prize.
His media career spans national radio, TV, books, newspapers, magazines, scripting, professional speaking, podcasts and the internet.
Karl has degrees in Physics and Maths, Biomedical Engineering, Medicine and Surgery and has worked as a physicist, tutor, filmmaker, car mechanic, labourer and medical doctor at the Kids’ Hospital in Sydney.
His enthusiasm for science is totally infectious and no one is better able to convey the excitement and wonder of it all than Dr Karl Kruszelnicki.
Professor Alan Duffy
Professor Alan Duffy is an astrophysicist and science communicator, currently serving as Professor at the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing at Swinburne University of Technology.
Duffy completed his doctorate at the Australian component of the world’s largest astronomical facility, the Square Kilometre Array before moving to Melbourne as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow where he investigated the formation of the first galaxies in the early universe. His discoveries have changed our understanding of the universe and the formation of our galaxy.
Duffy has been Lead Scientist at the Royal Institution of Australia since 2017 and he regularly appears on Australia’s leading television and radio networks to explain developments in science and space.
Dr Susan Carland
Dr Susan Carland is an academic, writer and social commentator. Her PhD focused on the way Muslim women fight sexism both inside and outside the Muslim community.
Dr Carland is currently Director of the
Bachelor of Global Studies at Monash University, where her research focuses on the experiences of Muslim women and on the intersection of gender with prejudice, bigotry and extremism.
In 2021, she was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to explore practical strategies for countering Islamophobia, and in 2021, she received an Australian Research Council Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA).
Schools Ambassadors
Good to Great Schools Australia partners with school leaders and teachers to support them in using their profile and influencing their networks to promote our programs and the support we provide because they use and believe in it.
Principals
We link principals who have used our programs to principals who want to join our network so that they can share their experiences on implementing our programs.
Teachers
We connect teachers who are using our programs with teachers who want to join our network so they can share their experiences in implementing our programs.