Francis Gill is one of our talented Principals who has been appointed to the Board of ISNT. He is the Principal of the innovative and very successful SEDA College NT. SEDA College NT offers hands-on, industry aligned learning through sport, community partnerships and real-world vocational pathways.

Francis has had a leading part at SEDA NT since 2014. After, he had a short stint at SEDA in Geelong where he taught the Construction and Trade program in 2017. He returned to a leadership position in Darwin in 2018, becoming State Manager in 2019. During the next two years he took the school through the demanding task of Independent School Registration, and it opened as SEDA College NT in 2022 with him as the new School Principal.

Francis is well suited to the position. Living in a remote area was no problem as he was born in Mildura and grew up on family farming properties in Robinvale. Sport was his first love, with cricket being Number 1. As a fast bowler and upper order batsman he developed many of the abilities important for a Principal: determination, strategic awareness, imagination, patience, confidence, resilience, teamwork, understanding, ability to re-group after disappointment, achievement, courage - it’s all there in cricket!

After leaving school Francis had a position with Cricket Victoria as the Regional Cricket Development Officer of the Mallee, Murray Region. Aged 18 and 19 he spent 2002/3 playing in England with the in-between seasons back in Australia - five seasons of cricket “on the trot”.

After a year in Canberra with ACT cricket, he realised how much he enjoyed teaching. So off to Melbourne to study at Victoria University, a Bachelor of Applied Science in Human Movement and a Diploma of Secondary Education. He also played District Cricket for Northcote for 3 years, Bill Lawry’s old team. District Cricket is at the highest level and is the league before State Cricket. After Northcote he played for Kew in the Sub-District league.

Francis spent a year in 2010 teaching at Fitzroy High school, known for its progressive learning culture and flexible campus. It is not surprising that Francis went to work at the specialist sports school SEDA. Between 2011 and 2013 he taught the High-Performance class in Carlton.

Francis is good with people, empathetic, good in discussions, creative in thinking and has welded a very effective team together. He is a natural leader and born teacher. He has no trouble recruiting staff who, more often than not, find themselves at his door. He is also a family man with three children aged 10, 8 and 6 - boy, boy, girl. His wife works in marketing at CDU. Francis and his family love travel and took time off last year marketing around Australia with their caravan. Such experience is very valuable for a school Principal.

Francis is a huge supporter of the work of ISNT and its amazing staff and highly values all the support they give to member schools. Important amongst this is the highly valued networking, camaraderie, shared knowledge and experience available especially found in the Annual Darwin and Alice Springs conferences.

Francis notes that he is looking forward to supporting the organisation in a more formal position and certainly hopes that his experience of registering a school from scratch may help provide context and knowledge to those who may be or are in a similar position.

It is wonderful that Francis has decided to serve on the Board.