I really valued working with Rachel. She is a fierce advocate for parents voices to be heard in the education landscape and contributed greatly to discussions in the teacher and school regulation space.
Liz Aloni
Rachel has the professional skills to bring parents, schools and stakeholders together. Rachel has an innovative and collaborative approach to problem solving and resolving conflict. It is without hesitation that I recommend Rachel.
Tracey O'Neil
Rachel genuinely cares about helping schools build lasting connections with parents for effective parent engagement. My experiences of working with Rachel have been very positive.
Tracey O'Neil
Rachel communicates with clarity and purpose with stakeholders and partners, always positioning what is ultimately best for the child at the centre of any conversation or program.
Matthew Williams
Rachel has a passion for parent engagement in schools and a drive to seek opportunities for parents/carers to be active participants in the education of their children.
Matthew Williams
I have worked with Rachel Saliba since 2019 and found her to be passionate and committed in providing parents in Catholic schools with a strong and meaningful voice. Her impressive approach and understanding from both a parent and educator’s perspective makes her ideally suited to represent parents in any dialogue about what 21st century education should look like. Her professional and understated manner makes her a joy to work with. Parents have traditionally lacked an educated voice speaking on their behalf in the education sector, and in Rachel they have a high flyer who has the perfect qualities to present the parent’s agenda in the forming of education policy.
Ralph Barba
If you are a school that is in need to promote yourself in your community, Rachel Saliba and Practically Learning is the first person and organisation you should contact. Her deep understanding about what parents and families want when selecting a school for their children allows her to formulate a specialised and vibrant marketing strategy for schools that is authentic and proven. She is the master of being able to convey the essence of a school to its community. In video work I have done for Practically Learning I have never seen teachers more prepared and passionate about telling their story to prospective parents. This is testimony to Rachel’s preparatory work and rare ability to get educators and schools to tell their story in a powerful way.
Ralph Barba
It has been great working with Rachel as she shares her expertise on engaging parents in the school community. Her Learning through Play workshop was interactive, informative and entertaining. I would recommend working with Rachel to inspire your school community.
Verona Gridley
I have had the pleasure of working beside Rachel in developing marketing material, events and support for parents of children in Catholic schools across Victoria. Rachel is passionate, knowledgeable and skilled in parent engagement, strategy development and advocacy for parents. She is professional and reliable and I enjoy working with her on a variety of projects.
Jodie McLeod
Rachel has an amazing capacity to explicitly determine the goals of the client and the community, and then puts together an exciting strategy that brands and positions the organisation to understand and meet that community’s needs. Rachel’s work strengthens positive outcomes for all stake holders. Rachel is my ‘go to person’ when I want to align the organisation’s work with the community of which it is a part.
Martin Prior
Rachel is an excellent human being. I know her work and the value she can provide a teacher and parent on how to work closely so the child can be provided the best help to flourish in life.
She is a very focussed and dedicated coach and speaker. She connects easily with her audience because she understands them really well.
Soma Gupta
Rachel’s presentations are informative, engaging, and thought-provoking. It’s clear she puts a lot of thought and preparation into her talks and it shows.
We have received many positive comments from attendees about her presentation. They were particularly impressed with Rachel’s insights into Cognitive Challenges In Learning. We are confident that Rachel’s talk will have a lasting impact on the attendees’ thinking and work.
Brijesh Kumar Singh
“The webinar offered a good insight into the program that cognitive learning offers. Using a mix of videos and verbal explanations to illustrate their main points. The enthusiasm and knowledge they have for their program was very evident.”
Kate
“I found the webinar to be quite insightful and gave me a new, positive perspective on content that I had otherwise not thought about for a while.”
Andrew
“I learned about family school partnerships from a parent perspective. Thank you!! It was a very informative and interesting presentation.”
Bec
“A great insight into the parent perspective of home and school learning. A great presentation, very helpful.”
Brigit
“I learned the different levels of engagement and the importance of communication.”
Stacie
“It’s great to hear from both a parent perspective and a professional. I will use the strategies learned if given the opportunity.”
Sam
“I learned the possible barriers to involvement and engagement from a parent perspective.”
Jess
“I learned the importance of engaging parents and how to do informal learning through play at home as well as the importance of future learning.”
Hannah
Rachel Stewart - Founder & Director
Rachel Stewart is the Founding Director of intoimages, a design agency she began in 2001 followed by her second business, Practically Learning, a coaching and consulting business which she founded in 2010.
Rachel’s passion for parent engagement in children’s learning happened by accident.
It was when her eldest child began school that she realised there was a disconnect between home and school that was preventing her from effectively continuing her role to support her children’s learning at home. Around that time she was at a crossroads in her career, not feeling inspired as a designer anymore and struggling to raise three children and build her business. She attended some business seminars in Melbourne that inspired her to discover her true passion, her ‘North Star’ and pursue a new career path.
Learning Facilitator, Coach & Consultant
Rachel’s observations and personaI experiences of the University and schooling system sparked her interest in a new path as she began to explore what was causing the gap between the two most important people and influences in children’s lives, parents and teachers.
It was then she discovered parent engagement was actually one of the key strategies, backed by five decades of research, that wasn’t being implemented consistently in schools across Australia. Old models of involvement were still part of the culture of schools and engagement in learning was not on the radar. This was a turning point for Rachel in discovering ways to support schools as a critical friend to create a culture that included parents as partners in their children’s education.
With a background in creative and strategic solutions, transformational results coaching, training and facilitation of teachers and students at Victoria University and Australian Catholic University, as well as working for seven years as Executive Officer for Catholic School Parents Victoria, Rachel has worked with over 20 schools, engaging with education leaders, stakeholders and government to understand how the education system works, providing her with a unique insight as a parent and teacher into areas needing further support, specifically in the area of parent engagement.
Rachel is committed to supporting the adults who surround children and has appeared at several conferences to share the value of parent engagement for whole school communities. She has spoken at several conferences including Broken Bay Parents NSW Conference, ARACY Parent Engagement Conference, Schools Plus National Conference, Bully Zero National Conference, NCEC National Conference and has co-presented and facilitated several webinars alongside Energia SOI and Wellbeing Australia.
Rachel’s professional learning courses for school leaders, teachers and parents feature on this website and on the global online professional learning platform EC by Go1.
Entrepreneur, speaker, author
As founder and director of her second business, Practically Learning, Rachel began designing and delivering her signature training program to develop the capacity of parents and teachers in the areas of relationships, communication, parent engagement and working alongside each other in partnership to support students. Over the past 12 years she’s learned from parent engagement experts from across the globe, engaging them as speakers and being a speaker herself at several national conferences.
Rachel has featured in radio interviews on 3AW Melbourne, ABC Radio National and BayFM Radio.
Rachel’s articles have featured in The Educator, School News and Education Today and she has contributed as a co-author of Rising to Feminine Power by Josephine Palermo
In 2018 Rachel was named in the Educator Hotlist Awards as an influential leader in education relating to her work in developing strategies to build positive school communities and social capital to support parents .. Her collaborative and creative approach enabled the schools to shift culture and embrace parent engagement in learning. As a result of her work, schools reported a marked difference in student behaviour and wellbeing. She has recently published her book for parents and educators, ‘Creating Connections’ – Inspire your child to thrive in their learning available now through Amba Press on Amazon and Booktopia.
Visit our media page for more information and feature interviews with Rachel.
Download Rachel’s bio here
Three phases to connect, engage and inspire authentic partnerships in your school.
Providing accessible professional learning for school leaders, teachers and parents.
