Dr Andrew Bills

Andrew Bills is a teacher and researcher in educational leadership foregrounding policy, politics and practice. In 2022, he won the ACEL SA Distinguished Contribution to Research in Education Leadership Award. He is a translational researcher. His work is in service to schools and school systems to address inequality and lift equity. His primary audience for teaching, research, and public presentations are system leaders, school principals and teachers.

Prior to university employment, he developed three alternative schools for disadvantaged young people and worked in the SA Education Department as a diagnostic school reviewer, educational leadership consultant, school counsellor, special education teacher and action researcher. He works [and has worked] in partnership with international, national and state educational organisations and educational stakeholders including:

• The Australian Education Union (AEU);
• The University of South Australia (UniSA);
• Research Fellow on two Australian Research Council (ARC) projects in partnership with DfE and UniSA;
• Big Picture Education Australia (BPEA);
• The Department for Education (DfE);
• The Australian National Schools Network (ANSN);
• Catholic Education South Australia (CESA);
• College Street Nornal School (New Zealand);
• The Australian Association for Flexible and Inclusive Education (AAFIE);
• The Independent Schools Sector;
• The Commissioner for Children and Young People;
• Ministers for Education and Education System leaders.

In these partnerships Andrew has led and continues to lead professional development for new and experienced school leaders and has managed, designed and developed three schools using action research and appreciative inquiry as the driving school establishment and formation methodologies.

Andrew currently leads three externally funded research projects in partnership with university academics, school principals, education system bureaucrats and teacher-leaders that seek to collectively build and develop socially just schooling forms in South Australia.

He works within the research traditions of phenomenology and critical sociology, bringing appreciative inquiry, post-structural policy analysis and critical action research methodologies to his work.