About

I’m Sarah Alice Hopkinson, an education and engagement leader working at the intersection of public learning, curriculum innovation, environmental regeneration, and lifelong learning.

I design and lead systems of learning that nourish people and place — supporting clarity, belonging, and collective wellbeing across complex organisations, communities, and national cultural institutions.

My work brings together strategy, facilitation, change management and curriculum design, grounded in Te Tiriti–led practice, ecological thinking, and a deep respect for story, place, and relational process. I am particularly interested in how institutions can act as places of ethical remembering, imagination, and repair in times of profound social and ecological change.

I am known for holding complexity with care — creating conditions where people can think clearly, feel safely, and move together toward shared purpose. From intimate workshops to large-scale public engagement, my approach centres cultural integrity, systems thinking, and human creativity.

Short bio statement

Sarah Alice Hopkinson is a senior education and engagement leader based in Aotearoa New Zealand. Her work spans public learning, curriculum innovation, environmental education, and institutional transformation, with a focus on Te Tiriti–led practice, ecological connection, and collective wellbeing.

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Longer bio statement

Sarah Alice Hopkinson is a senior education and engagement leader in Aotearoa New Zealand, known for her work at the intersection of curriculum innovation, public learning, environmental education, and systems change.

With deep expertise in curriculum design, Sarah has led and contributed to major national and international initiatives, including the development of the New Zealand Curriculum, curriculum frameworks for schools and learning communities, and large-scale curriculum projects in the Pacific. Her work spans schools, communities, and national cultural institutions, where she designs learning that is values-led, place-based, and future-facing.

She brings a calm, rigorous, and values-led approach to leadership, known for her ability to hold complexity, navigate change, and build trust across diverse groups. Her work consistently weaves people, place, and purpose, creating learning environments that are both intellectually robust and deeply human.

Sarah currently contributes to national curriculum development in the social sciences and works alongside leading cultural institutions on education and engagement strategy and public programmes. Her recent work includes designing transformative ways for learners to engage with museum collections and leading the development of resources that integrate sustainability, climate response, and civic responsibility across learning areas.

Grounded in Te Tiriti o Waitangi and ecological thinking, Sarah’s practice centres relational, participatory approaches to learning. She is particularly interested in how institutions can act as places of belonging, ethical remembering, and imagination in times of social and ecological disruption.

Sarah holds a Master of Education (Distinction) in Curriculum, Teaching and Learning and has held senior advisory and leadership roles across the education sector. She also writes widely on Pākehā responsibility, land, and belonging in Aotearoa.

To who and what do I belong?

I belong to this time of creativity, revolution, and urgent transformation.
I belong to learning — and to unlearning, too.
I belong to listening for other stories.

I belong with people, projects, and places that explore more holistic ways of knowing — ways that cultivate love for each other, for this beautiful earth, and for this aching moment in time.

Blood runs in my body from England, Wales, and Norway. Far from these places, I now belong on an island in the South Pacific, in Aotearoa New Zealand. I belong here as tangata Tiriti, through enacting Te Tiriti o Waitangi in practice, responsibility, and relationship.

I was born in Hāwera on Ngāti Ruanui whenua, raised beneath Taranaki Mounga in Ngāmotu on Te Atiawa land, and now live beside Kāpiti Island on Te Atiawa ki Kāpiti whenua.

I belong in honest relationship with my colonial ancestors, and with the ongoing harm to people and place that many inherited values have brought to these lands.

I belong in relationship with my wounds and their stories — seen and unseen, inherited and invented. I am called to heal, and in turn to contribute to collective healing.

I belong in a woven spiral of interconnectedness — as descendant and future ancestor; as daughter and now as mother; as granddaughter, and perhaps one day as grandmother. I follow this imperfect, certain love back home again and again.

I belong to the sun, the rain, and the turning seasons.
To the damp brown soil I tend and love.
To the apple tree and the vegetables I grow.
To the compost — to the microbes, protozoa, nematodes, and earthworms.
To the bees and butterflies, the pollinators and the birds.

I belong here, in symbiotic relationship with them all.

These days demand that I move with more purpose than ever before.

I belong — even with not knowing.

I belong in gratitude.
I belong in deep appreciation for all of this.
For all of this.
For all of this.

We make the path by walking it.

I belong.

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