Dr Adrian Camm, Principal of Westbourne Grammar and Managing Director of its Board, is a global education strategist and transformation expert. He has presented his innovative learning concepts to prominent figures like Dr Edward de Bono, Daniel Dennett, and Raymond Kurzweil. Holding a Master of Education (Leadership), a PhD from Deakin University, and having studied at Oxford’s Saïd Business School, Dr Adrian also has experience as a company director. He champions collaborative achievement and leads Westbourne through its most significant growth period in nearly 160 years.
Dr. Adrian’s accomplishments have earned him numerous accolades, including the 2009 Australian Award for Teaching Excellence, the 2010 Victorian Education Excellence Award for Outstanding Secondary Teacher of the Year, and the 2024 Australian Education Award for Australian School Principal of the Year. He is a regular feature on The Educator’s Hotlist and is recognised as one of Australia’s most influential educators.
In this exclusive interview with K12 Digest, Dr Adrian shares insights on the most pressing challenges facing schools today, the transformative power of project-based learning, and the critical role of STEM in shaping the next generation of problem-solvers. From creating AI academies to fostering a culture of inclusivity and collaboration, Dr Adrian’s forward-thinking approach offers a roadmap for educators, parents, and industry leaders seeking to equip students with the skills and agency needed to thrive in an uncertain world. Discover how one of Australia’s most influential educators is redefining what it means to prepare students for the future—and why his vision matters now more than ever.
As someone with extensive experience in leadership roles across various educational institutions, what inspired your journey into education, and how has your vision evolved over the years?
I was interested in everything as a young person. My subject choices in my final year of secondary schooling reflected this as I studied subjects ranging from Specialist Mathematics to the study of Literature and Classical Societies and Cultures. I developed an interest in the intersection of technology and mathematics and spent a great deal of time specializing in cryptography at university. Thinking I was heading for a career in the Air Force, personal circumstances dictated that I needed to stay close to home and so started a graduate diploma of education thinking that teaching would be something that I could do in the interim. Starting in a low socio-economic school as a permission to teach teacher, I quickly fell in love with the profession. Since then, my career has been a blend of deliberate planning and seizing every opportunity in front of me. Right from the early stages of my work, I have been fascinated by people dynamics and the transformative power of great leadership. I am constantly in the process of learning and developing expertise across all domains of leadership and management – this has allowed my career to continue to advance, evolve, and adapt to shifting contexts and situations. Whilst I continue to learn, evolve and develop expertise, I don’t think my vision has really changed that much. I have always believed that school can be so much more than what it traditionally has been and so I do everything in my power to really push the boundaries of what is possible in schools.
With education undergoing rapid transformation globally, what do you believe are the most pressing challenges facing schools today, and how can institutions adapt to stay relevant and impactful?
School education is at an inflection point, shaped by technological advancements, evolving workforce demands, teacher shortages, and shifting societal expectations. Schools must navigate these changes whilst preparing students for a future that is increasingly uncertain.
Schools must continually examine what they do and find a balance between the delivery of the traditional aspects of education and more progressive and innovative approaches. This includes flexible modes of delivery but more importantly, introducing new and relevant curriculum and pedagogical models that excite, empower, and equip young people with a sense of agency. With agency, young people develop what I believe to be the most fundamental aspect of a modern education – that is, they learn how to learn, and by doing so, can tackle any situation or problem they face in the future.
Therefore, schools need to provide more opportunities for young people to learn autonomy, independence, and self-determination, and by doing so, place more emphasis on the development of capacity and capability thereby equipping students with the skills, tools, attitudes, attributes, and dispositions to embrace a world of constant change.
Having championed experiential and project-based learning, what are some of the most innovative approaches you’ve implemented at Westbourne Grammar School? How do these prepare students for the challenges of the future?
Adoption of a futures thinking curriculum, esports program, and experimentation with brain-machine interfaces and biometric technology have facilitated student agency, but perhaps most impressive is the evolution of our AI Academy. Students from Year 5 to Year 12 are now creating their own artificially intelligent applications and products utilizing machine learning. This not only aligns with our vision of shaping learners who inspire the world but also our philosophical position of ensuring that young people today are the creators of tomorrow’s technology.
I have also created an AI Avatar of myself that is being deployed in a variety of contexts. This digital twin is able to recognise, understand, and appropriately respond to human speech in a human-like manner, looks like me, generates spoken responses with a voice clone that sounds exactly like me, can speak in one of fifty different languages with perfect real-time translation, has realistic facial expressions, body moves and gestures, and utilizes an extensive knowledge base that is connected to a custom large language model. This allows greater connection with our alumni, international markets, and agents who support the school with student recruitment. I also use this AI Avatar to educate the parent community about the opportunities and challenges of AI both now and in the future.
Learning at its heart is experiential. Providing young people with real-world problems, situations, and scenarios leads to deeper and more powerful learning. So technology is important, however, we also have students starting charities, and not-for-profit businesses, raising significant amounts of money for worthy causes, travelling around the world immersing themselves in different cultures, learning about service, and beginning later this year, we have a student-led café opening here at the school where every student in Year 8 will gain experience in the end-to-end management of a real small enterprise.
Given your extensive work in STEM education and your advocacy for integrating technology, how do you envision the role of STEM evolving in shaping the future of learning and problem-solving?
Engineering and art have always been interrelated but perhaps even more so now. Computer programming in university is mandatory for most biologists, musicians and historians. Mathematicians, statisticians and scientists’ primary intellectual tool is now that of the computer. Robotics and automation have transformed and revolutionized the way many disciplines and businesses operate. 3D printers are now a mainstream tool for Dentists, Prosthetists and many other medical professionals.
An in-depth knowledge, skillset and expertise of a particular specialization are still important, but increasingly major discoveries are happening at the interstices between disciplines, and this requires depth in a specific field but also an ability and the capability to see and make connections more broadly.
STEM or STEAM then transcends subjects and becomes a way of thinking about the world whereby students will increasingly be collaborating with intelligent systems and leveraging the technology at their disposal to enhance and augment their abilities and to do things that were not possible even just a few years ago.
As a strategist and global speaker, what trends in school education do you think are critical for educators and policymakers to prioritize over the next decade?
There is an incredible inertia in school education making any significant change incredibly difficult. It’s almost like a rubber band, you can pull it, and stretch it a certain distance, but as soon as you stop applying pressure it will revert to its normal shape and form.
In saying that, over the next decade, educators and policymakers must prioritize several critical trends to ensure school education remains relevant, equitable, and future-focused. Artificial Intelligence will drive the agenda in the coming years in every aspect of teaching and learning and business operations, as will student well-being, and at least in the Australian context, school funding and the attraction and retention of quality teachers in a climate where the profession is not seen as one of prestige.
In your role as Principal and Managing Director, how do you foster a culture of innovation, inclusivity, and collaboration among students, educators, and the broader school community?
Westbourne moves at an incredible pace via a culture of distributed leadership that has been created through an intentional approach informed by accelerator networks.
Accelerator networks are a second, more agile, network-like structure that operates in concert with the traditional hierarchy allowing the school to capitalize on rapid-fire strategic challenges and new directions. The traditional hierarchy and the network coexist to drive efficiency and innovation. The two systems work as one with high trust and a constant flow of information. This has created opportunities for leadership, career advancement, and the gaining of valuable experience in leading significant projects and initiatives irrespective of position or title within the school. This foundational structure and approach continue to be the catalyst for innovation and collaboration. For instance, in 2021 we launched a digital strategy that aimed to position us at the forefront of digital within 3 years. The strategy had 82 key deliverables, and we had 45 staff members from across the school contributing to the end-to-end project management of strategic priorities that have advanced our school in different ways. The result? A 3-year strategy was delivered in under 2 years and we have now been able to launch into our second iteration that will allow us to entrench our position as the leader in digital in the independent school education sector in Australia.
We believe that investing in our people is a responsibility. Every staff member has an individual and personalized career trajectory plan that assists them in reaching the goals that they set for themselves. Staff have access to the most generous professional learning provisions in the country, access to travelling fellowships, and are actively encouraged to pursue post-graduate study supported by the school – currently, we have 18 staff doing study at a Masters or PhD level. This level of investment in our people also extends to our students. Involving students in real-life experiences such as strategy creation and recruitment and inviting students to sit on interview panels for teaching and senior leadership positions ensures students see themselves as having a seat at the decision-making table creating a fully inclusive school culture.
You’ve accomplished so much in your career and inspired countless educators. What is one piece of advice or a life lesson that has shaped you and that you would share with aspiring leaders and educators?
One piece of advice? Double down on your authentic self, be true to who you are, be a voracious learner, and never say no to an opportunity. I think that might be four pieces of advice!