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To wrap up, I would like to celebrate Mary’s passion—learning environments: While we have made important progress at a regulatory and policy level, there remains a valuable opportunity to bring Mary’s ideas more fully into everyday school life—moving beyond lesson plans within individual classrooms towards inquiry-based and experiential learning across larger Neighbourhoods. As a mother of a primary-school-aged child, I see this as extending well beyond classroom design. It encompasses how we create environments that support curiosity and connection, how we embrace First Nations narratives, and how we give children greater agency as they grow and develop. Mary’s work reminds us that creating better learning environments is not simply about the spaces themselves, but about the kind of learning, relationships and opportunities we want to foster for our children. In Mary’s words: “To develop wonderful schools we need systemic innovation, evaluation and evolution.” If you work in this space, have influence within it, or share Mary’s vision, I hope we can all play a part in moving this conversation forward and creating learning environments that truly enable our children to thrive.
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