The City of Wyndham continues to undergo rapid change in its demographics and character, due in part to a high and increasing birth rate and a large influx of new residents and relatively young population. With significant cultural diversity including the largest population of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the Greater Melbourne area, the richness of culture is woven throughout the entire community. In order to ensure excellent social, health and economic outcomes for our growing and wonderfully diverse population, Wyndham City Council is committed to building and maintaining a lifelong and life-wide learning culture which is dynamic, diverse and accessible to residents across all life stages.
What is a Learning City?
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defines a Learning City as one “which effectively mobilises its resources across all sectors to maximise the opportunities for lifelong learning for all its citizens”. Wyndham was officially welcomed into the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities in 2019 and is very proud of the key achievements and progress that is has made in the years since. Wyndham proudly stands as a global leader and supports individuals and local communities on their learning journey.
As a member of the Global Network of Learning Cities, Wyndham utilises UNESCO’s “Learning
City” definition as one which:
- Promotes inclusive learning from basic to higher education
- Revitalises learning in families and communities
- Facilitates learning for and in the workplaces
- Extends the use of modern learning technologies
- Enhances quality and excellence in learning, and
- Fosters a culture of learning throughout life
Wyndham City Council’s Learning City Portfolio Committee provides input and guidance to deliver on the Learning Community Strategy actions helping to improve learning outcomes in Wyndham. The Committee is made up of members of the community and key learning stakeholders and strives to ensure Wyndham residents have access to quality education and learning opportunities.
Below you will find some of the work Wyndham has done in local, national and international forums.
UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities Award
Our Learning Community team are delighted to become proud recipients of a UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities Award for our work in lifelong and lifewide learning. The biennial UNESCO Learning City Awards encourage, recognise and reward UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities (GNLC) members who have demonstrated significant progress in enhancing education and lifelong learning opportunities for all.
UNESCO acknowledged Wyndham’s commitment to building a Learning City and helping residents improve their learning outcomes through lifelong learning. This award was only possible through our incredible collaborations and partnerships locally, nationally and internationally.
Learning Community Strategy
Learning is fundamental to the well-being, prosperity and sense of belonging of all people.
Council has established a strong foundation for lifelong learning within the community since the creation of its first Learning Community Strategy in 2010. The recently adopted Learning Community Strategy 2018-2023 outlines a commitment to ensuring the benefits of learning are available to all Wyndham residents and promotes a learning community culture where equity and inclusion are the drivers of planning, engagement and delivery.
The Learning Strategy identifies a range of priority skills such as Learning Agility; Literacy, Numeracy and Language; Digital Fundamentals & New Media; Civics; Employability and Leadership.
The Learning Strategy will foster these priority skills through a range of Strategy actions focused on Celebrating living and learning in Wyndham, with the Learning Festival as the signature event; Advocating for equity and quality in service provision; Facilitating partnerships and collaboration across sectors to create new learning models and deliver outcomes for all; and Innovating learning and fostering new entrepreneurial spirit through integration with, and promotion of, Wyndham’s Smart City agenda.
Wyndham Learning Festival
2022 Wyndham Learning Festival
The Wyndham Learning Festival (WLF) is Wyndham’s largest annual learning event, focusing on promoting learning across the lifespan.
Following two years of online-only events due to the extended impacts of the Pandemic, the 2022 WLF went ahead with a blended delivery of in- person and online events. With the theme of “Building a Resilient, Sustainable Wyndham”, the free 2022 Festival offered something for all ages and interests from 1-7 September and celebrated and encouraged lifelong learning with 70 activities from across the Arts, S.T.E.M, Environment and Sustainability to Health & Wellbeing, Families and Children and more! Events were as varied as a Young Scientist of Wyndham Competition; Thai Cooking; a Photography Workshop; Recycling; a Multicultural Sports Expo; Lawn Bowls; Building Resilience in Children; Gardening; Sustainability; a Farm tour; a Werribee River walk; an author talk with Morris Gleitzman, and many, many more!
As collaborators on the delivery of the Festival, now in its seventh year, the Wyndham Community and Education Centre (Wyndham CEC) and Wyndham City Council (WCC) share a passion for learning and recognise the far-reaching social, economic, environmental and cultural benefits of promoting lifelong learning. This year saw Wyndham CEC purchase and interface an online booking system to the WLF website. This enabled a greater and more timely insight into event data. Previously this data was collected via event feedback surveys, administered after the events.
Some key highlights include:
● 70 events were registered by a range of organisations
● In person events: 52
● Online/Zoom/Teams:18
● Total audience registrations 1,288
● WLF website views: 5,891
View the full final 2022 Wyndham Learning Festival Report (pdf)
View the full final 2022 Wyndham Learning Festival - Final Report (word)
2021 Wyndham Learning Festival
The Wyndham Learning Festival (WLF) is Wyndham’s largest annual learning event, focusing on promoting learning across the lifespan. Following a challenging year for all in 2020, the 2021 WLF was a smaller, curated program ensuring that all community members had the opportunity to find a learning event of interest. With the theme of ‘Re-emerge, Connect & Thrive’, the 2021 WLF provided a celebration for the community living through a challenging time and offered hope for reemerging brighter and better into the future!
As collaborators on the delivery of the Festival, now in its sixth year, the Wyndham Community and Education Centre (Wyndham CEC) and Wyndham City Council (WCC) share a passion for learning and recognise the far-reaching social, economic, environmental and cultural benefits of promoting lifelong learning. Whilst initially planned as a hybrid event, the 2021 Festival was switched to completely online due to a prolonged lockdown in Victoria. This meant that some events could not proceed, as they did not translate into the virtual space, reducing the number of events offered to 43 (down from a planned, smaller than previous years 55 events).
One objective of the curated program was to enable providers to run smaller, interactive events. The ability to interact with attendees, and to meaningfully field questions from the audience met the needs of both event providers and participants, particularly at this challenging time. Approximately 1400 people attended the 43 events that made up the 2021 WLF, with over 1800 people registering. The learning events came under eight categories:
- The Arts (performance and visual), crafts, & hobbies
- Sport/Recreation
- Business, jobs & career
- Science, technology & digital literacy
- Health, wellbeing & self-care
- Language, faith & culture
- Cooking & food culture
- Children & families
View the 2021 Wyndham Learning Festival report
2020 Wyndham Learning Festival
The Wyndham Learning Festival took place between 23-30 November 2020 and offered more than 150, free online classes, talks and workshops led by over 78 different providers. The festival was led by Wyndham Community and Education Centre and supported by Wyndham City Council and sponsored by Victoria University (VU) Polytechnic. This year’s theme was ‘Healthy Learning, Healthy Lives,’ with activities relating to this theme offered for all interests and ages, including Chinese lantern making, Brazilian drumming, karate classes for beginners, dance grooves from West Africa, lessons of global cooking skills, Ancient Egypt Hieroglyphs, and the Matsunaga Institute in Hawaii shared stories of resilience, peace and conflict resolution.
In response to the pandemic, the working group took the Festival fully online, taking the opportunity to bring the world to Wyndham and Wyndham to the world, including attendees and events that came in from across the globe. We are excited to share that this spotlight on Wyndham has created some dynamic and fortuitous new partnerships and networks, further enhancing and profiling the work and leadership of Wyndham as a Learning City.
Wyndham City Council led various key events during the Learning Festival including this year’s signature event, WYNtalk: Finding Your Voice with Clare Bowditch which took place on 29 November. This fun, confidence-boosting, empowering and interactive event had the charasmatic Clare sharing stories from her own life, singing and answer questions. There were over 180 registrations for the event, and over 50 attendees on the day including the new Learning City Portfolio Committee holder Cr Jasmine Hill who welcomed the audience. Those that could not make it have the option to view the recording in the future on Council and WLF websites. Another key event included the Australian Learning Communities Network 2020 Roundtable, which was co-led and planned by WCC and the ALCN, and featured dynamic presentations from various speakers and learning cities around entrepreneurship, resilience and sustainable communities.
Starting the session off was Judith James, PASCAL Observatory Board member and former Head of Strategic Regional Collaboration, Swansea University, Wales, U.K. with her presentation on Why in a Post-COVID world it is important to develop an entrepreneurial spirit within communities. Martin Probst from Wyndham’s PROfound Leadership shared his insights on developing entrepreneurship leadership skills. A presentation from Gwydir Shire was provided then Wyndham Council’s own Daryl Wilson shared some inspiring local examples of innovation. The event concluded with a round-table of tasters of opportunities and challenges in learning communities around Australia, from Melton, Townsville, Sudbury (W.A) and back to Hume. A recording of the session can be accessed here.
The Learning Community team also led an event where researchers Charlotte Bagnall from Manchester University and Lisa Mundy from the Murdoch Institute, spoke about the Middle School-Aged Years, wellbeing and COVID-19 to an intimate group of policy makers and educators working in this space. We are pleased to say this partnership will continue, and in collaboration with the WCC Middle Years Working Group led by Karen Thomson, we will be collaborating on a transitions project during 2021.
Finally, the Learning Community team partnered with the Department of Education Koori Engagement Support Officers for the West, Lisa and Judy to run a Professional Development session ‘Brief Introduction to the Kulin Nations’. The event had 40 attendees and was MCeed by Jac from the LC team. After information on Acknowledgement to Country, traditional owners, Bunjil the Eagle and the importance of history and cultural ties, discussions shifted to the challenges that the Aboriginal people have had since the arrival of white settlers. The rise of activists like William Cooper was discussed; such activists fought against discrimination and advocated for human rights. The discussions then moved to cultural significance sites across Australia and their importance to the Aboriginal people.
On moving forward and closing the gaps, the hosts noted that in as much as most of the communities are still struggling and passing on at a young age, there were positive strides that had been made, especially on the health for elders with illness. The Covid-19 pandemic has meant the local communities were affected as people could not see each other. The Aboriginal community is close knit and not being able to see other family members has impacted the mental health of the community greatly, and it was observed that some young people had been lost because the lockdown had been too much to bear. The hosts then spoke on the Indigenous early childhood activities in Wyndham, and other activities like the Wyndham walk, cultural day at cultural sites, and lessons from the presenters in those sites.
A final WLF report will be finalised and shared in the near future, sharing challenges, achievements and quantitative and qualitative data on the project for 2020.
The article “Wyndham City: a tale of steady progress towards a sustainable learning community" co-authored by Diane Tabbagh and Dr Leone Wheeler (ALCN) has been published in Adult Learning Australia’s 60th anniversary Australian Journal of Adult Learning.
Global Learning Festival
WynTalk: 'Pathway to Reconciliation' with Marlee Silva
Marlee Silva , author and podcaster shared her perspective on Aboriginal issues, culture and identity, and how we can connect with country, space and place.
Marlee spoke from her heart, sharing her experiences growing up in Australia and generously sharing her ideas on how we can all be better allies to Aboriginal people.
She implored us to use this WynTalk conversation to pause, reflect and make a commitment to learning, growing, and being a changemaker for a better future for us all.
Watch the recording here:
Recording & Resources from the Evaluation of Learning Cities and Regions
Case studies from Northern Ireland and Australia 7/11/2022 @ 7PM (AEDT)
Evaluation plays an important role in learning cities and regions. It tells us if we are achieving the intended outcomes of our lifelong learning strategies and initiatives and helps us to communicate the impact of our work to stakeholders.
This event featured case studies from two learning city practitioners from the City of Canning in Western Australia and Derry-Strabane in Northern Ireland, showcasing approaches to evaluation at program and strategic levels in both urban and rural contexts.
View: Global Learning Festival - Evaluation Resources
The 2022 Global Learning Festival - Final Report
The Global Learning Festival (GLF), co-hosted by Wyndham City Council and Melton City Council, together with members of UNESCO learning cities and learning communities across the globe was held 6-9 November. This is the third year that Wyndham has co-hosted the Global Learning Festival, and it continues to be a powerful opportunity to promote lifelong learning to a global audience. The GLF brings the world to Wyndham and takes Wyndham to the world. It is a central place for learners to come together to share their knowledge, skills, culture and traditions.
This year’s GLF featured 47 free online events, there was something for everyone, to suit all ages and interests and all time zones.
Many of the GLF events were recorded and can be viewed on the GLF website
The 2021 Global Learning Festival - Final Evaluation Report
This is the final report for the Global Learning Festival, which took place 8-11 November 2021. This project was led by Wyndham City Council and Melton City Council, in partnership with the PASCAL International Observatory and the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning.
View: The 2021 Global Learning Festival - Final Evaluation Report
2021 Global Learning Festival WYNtalk - Reconciliation: respecting and valuing Aboriginal history, learning and teaching
This event was run on Monday 8 November 2021 and featured teacher, media presenter, and columnist, Shelley Ware.
Our keynote speaker, Shelley Ware, shared her perspective on Aboriginal issues; leadership development in aboriginal communities and ways in which Aboriginal history, culture, learning and teaching can be embedded into our broader education systems; females in sport, AFLM and AFLW, and her own journey.
The 2020 Global Learning Festival - Final Evaluation Report
This is the final report for the Global Learning Festival, which took place in September 2020. This project was led by Wyndham City Council and Melton City Council, in partnership with the PASCAL International Observatory and the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning.
Download the Learning Community Strategy for the Global Learning Festival
Pre-recorded Learning Events
Wyndham Learning Festival 2022
With over 70 community-led Learning Events, over 1200 registrations, and a mix of in-person and online events, the 2022 Wyndham Learning Festival offered something for everyone!
This year’s festival theme was ‘Building a Resilient, Sustainable Wyndham'. Each of the curated events offered reflected upon this theme and provided a fun, engaging, and stimulating learning experience.
Check out this video to see what participants had to say about these wonderful events.
Some key highlights include:
● 70 events were registered by a range of organisations
● In person events: 52
● Online/Zoom/Teams:18
● Total audience registrations 1,288
● WLF website views: 5,891
Make sure you join us next September for another fun-filled and immersive festival!
View the full final 2022 Wyndham Learning Festival Report
A Resilient, Healthy, Sustainable Future: you can make a difference!
Join MC, Linh Do (Director of Leaders for Global Sustainability at the University of Melbourne and advisor to the United Nations Environment Program) providing expert advice on Climate Change, hear from Wyndham & Melton Council emergency services response expert on what is your local plan and from Wyndham & Melton Council’s sustainability officers with local knowledge of things your community can do to build a Resilient, Healthy, Sustainable Future.
Be inspired to learn how you could be involved and how you can make a difference!
This is a pre-recorded event, zoom link here and password to access recording: Vkyuwu0%.
My Smart Garden
My smart garden is a free sustainable gardening program that helps you get started growing food and transforming your outdoor space (yards, balconies or pots) into a beautiful, functional garden
In partnership with Melbourne Horticulturists Kat Lavers, Craig Castree and Scott Hitchins, My Smart Garden has developed a series of short gardening videos with great tips on starting and maintaining your garden:.
My Smart Gardens - to Growing Salad Greens
Make yourself home at Wyndham City Community Centres
Wyndham’s Community Centres are welcoming and vibrant places providing a great range of services, activities and programs that are low-cost and for all ages and interests.
Centres support residents, community leaders, associations and groups to run activities, programs and events for the wider neighbourhood to participate in.
Each centre aims to reflect the aspirations and strengths of the neighbourhood. They are great places to make new friends, volunteer or join one of the many community groups that call these centres home.
Wyndham City Community Centres
KU Food For Life
Packing lunchboxes made simple and easy.
This video by Chef Charlotte Patterson provides ideas on how to pack fresh, healthy, convenient, and affordable lunch boxes that provide the nutritional needs for a growing body.
Download recipes: Healthy Fritters
LearnWest Learning for Earning Festival
2022 Learning for Earning Festival
The Learning for Earning Festival returned for its second year in May 2022. This important collaboration between the six councils from Western and Northern Melbourne saw the members work together to support their various communities to improve learning and earning outcomes across the north and west. This model of collaboration amongst councils has meant a greater collective impact amongst our communities. Heartfelt thanks to all those involved in making the Learning for Earning Festival happen.
The festival was designed to provide participants with the knowledge and skills they need to upskill and look at different pathways to employment, to gain knowledge about starting or changing careers, to learn about leading and emerging industries and discover opportunities for the future.
This Festival was a more curated program in 2022, hosting three key flagship online forums, scaffolded by a series of live and in-person events held in each Council’s libraries.
Download the 2022 LearnWest Learning for Earning Report
2021 LearnWest Learning for Earning Festival
The LearnWest Network are proud to share their final report on the inaugural for the 2021 Learning for Earning Festival, which took place in May 2021. The project was an important collaboration between six councils from Western Melbourne (Wyndham City Council, Melton City Council, Brimbank City Council, Hobson's Bay City Council, Maribyrnong City Council and Moonee Valley Council) to support our various communities in learning and earning to improve outcomes across the west.
This project also included an important collaboration with the Australian Learning Communities Network, which partnered with Wyndham to support an International Development student from RMIT University, Ava Ter, to lead the writing of the final report and the collection of stories of Most Significant Change.
The report includes an interesting analysis of the initiative and an evaluation framework that captures important qualitative and quantitive data. This project, which ties into Action 12 of the Learning Community Strategy, is unique in its cross-council collaboration in learning in Australia.
Download 2021 LearnWest Learning for Earning Festival Report
Australian Learning Cities Network
Sharing Insights - Australian Learning Cities: global to local - local to global
On 4 May, 2022 the ALCN with Adult Learning Australia hosted a webinar: 'Sharing Insights - Australian Learning Cities: global to local - local to global' Councils from across Australia, including the award-winning learning cities – Wyndham City Council, Melton City council; Circular Head Council and aspiring learning cities, City of Canning and Wollongong City Council shared their experiences and insights on building healthy and resilient communities through learning and how they share knowledge and good practices on a local, national, and global scale.
The webinar included a keynote speech by David Atchoarena, Director, UNESCO Institute of Lifelong Learning (UIL), an Australian Learning Cities Showcase Panel - facilitated by Jenny Macaffer, CEO, Adult Learning Australia and a presentation by Peter Kearns, AM, ‘Reimaging Australian Learning Cities'.
View the webinar recording here.
On 11 May 2021, the ALCN, in partnership with Wyndham City Council. hosted a webinar: 'Australian Learning Cities: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.'
The webinar included a presentation by Peter Kearns, AM, ‘Learning cities in Australia: yesterday, today, tomorrow’, and by Jac Gomez-Torres, Wyndham City Council, reflecting on ‘Empathy Partnerships’ as part of Peter Kearns’ project for EcCoWell (as part of the PASCAL International Observatory).
Download: ALCN Webinar May 2021
Download: ALCN Webinar May 2021 - Menti Metre Responses
Friday Forums: Becoming a UNESCO Learning City - the City of Canning
An informal chat to learn about City of Canning’s journey towards joining the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities in September 2022
Other recordings
Measuring Partnerships in Learning Cities Initiatives Using Collective Impact
The Learning Community team is excited to share the Collective Impact Assessment Tool (CIAT) evaluation for 2020 for the Wyndham Learning Community Strategy (LCS). Fifty-seven partners were ranked across our three outcomes for both their engagement and contribution to the 18 actions of the LCS.
This is a fine effort in partnerships which demonstrates we truly will only achieve the goals of the LCS by engaging, working with, and empowering others.
Despite the impact of COVID, there was excellent progress in partnerships involved in the LCS
A narrative on Wyndham Learning City’s experience.
Wyndham has recently completed the first-year partnership evaluation of its current Learning Community Strategy (2018-2023) (LCS), using the Collective Impact Assessment Tool (CIAT). This software tool was first developed by neighbouring City of Melton’s Community Learning Board by Peter Blunden, Dr Shanti Wong and Ian Wong, with input from Dr Leone Wheeler. It has been adopted by other councils including ours, and by organisations such as hospitals.
The underlying premise of Collective Impact is that no single organisation can create large-scale, lasting social change alone. This tool helps measure how and to what level our partners and ourselves are collectively achieving our strategy goals and designated actions.
Our LCS Strategy has 18 different actions, some led by us, and others led by key partners where our team play a strong supporting role. In 2019, our actions ranged from events such as the Wyndham Learning Festival, community-wide projects focusing on transition and equity, and globally as we became a member of the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities.
To achieve our actions, we collaborated with over 50 partners from both departments within Wyndham City Council to externally local community groups, regionally with learning networks, nationally with the ALCN and internationally with UNESCO. As such, measuring our collective impact and contribution was complex and brought challenges.
To prepare for the assessment for the first year of the strategy, we first set up our three chosen assessment areas based on our objectives and goals in our LCS. These areas change depending on the focus of the strategy or learning project being considered. Then we checked we had listed all the partners involved across the year in any of our actions or the strategy more broadly. Next, we completed a subjective assessment of ourselves and all listed partners, ranking each partner as either high, medium or low in terms of their contribution as well as their participation on the three assessment areas. Then we did a broad overall assessment of the whole strategy as a project in and of itself.
CIAT supported a clear analysis as to what level different partners contributed in 2019, and as to how they contributed to our different LCS objectives.
For our first year, we ranked moderately in our three focus areas for 2019. Our focus on celebrating living and learning in Wyndham was highest due to the large partner contribution in our learning festival. These first CIAT results support us to see a clear baseline and help drive our planning for the upcoming years of the LCS. It also gives us potential to improve over time with this data being representative from only one year and allowing us scope to compare and reassess annually.
LCS CIAT Assessment Result for 2019
To see a little more of our journey and results, check out our video. LCS 2018 - 2023 CIAT 2019 With Voiceover by Jac Torres-Gomez.
Wyndham City: A tale of steady progress towards a sustainable learning community
Wyndham City: A tale of steady progress towards a sustainable learning community as published in the Australian Journal of Adult Education - Vol 60, Number 3.
Authors: Leone Wheeler & Diane Tabbagh Co-Ordinator , Learning Community, Wyndham City Council.
The Australian Journal of Adult Learning (AJAL) promotes critical thinking and research in the field of adult learning as well as the theory, research and practice of adult and community education. Each issue features articles that have been double, blind -peer refereed.
View introduction about article
Download full article - Journal is Australian Journal of Adult Education - Vol 60, Number 3.
0 - 8 Literacy and Numeracy
The Wyndham 0-8 years Literacy and Numeracy Network meets quarterly and works to enhance the state of literacy and numeracy for children aged 0-8 and their families in Wyndham.
View the 2021 Wyndham Literacy and Numeracy Research Report
Aboriginal culture driving new ways to learn
The Wyndham Learning Community Strategy 2018-2023 works to influence teaching and learning practices and to foster opportunities to promote local Aboriginal culture, history and politics through easily accessible resources.
The following are some great resources supporting this vision.
- Indigenous Astronomy
- ABC education videos - Adam Goodes
- The Australian Dream Cultural Identity
- The Australian Dream History and Truths
- The Australian Dream and Racism - Archie Roach
- Reconciliation Australia
- Healing Foundation
Related documents
- Wyndham Learning Community Strategy (PDF, 2.09 MB)