The Speakers

Barb Somervaille

Barb Somervaille chose home schooling as her career for 26 years and founded Mum Heart Australia to encourage home schooling mothers through conferences and support groups linked to Sally Clarkson’s Wholeheart Ministries.

Barb and her husband Andrew celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary this year and live on a beautiful little property in Ravensbourne where they raised their eight children. Barb tends to nurture her garden with more time these days since the children have grown and started their own families. In between enjoying grandchildren and working as a garden consultant, she dabbles in watercolour and flowers.

Even though she has graduated, Barb still loves to encourage the hearts of mums on their journey, particularly mums who home school.

Samantha Bryan

Samantha Bryan began formally home educating in the second half of 2003. Four of her children have graduated and the youngest is in his final year. All bar one homeschooled all the way through. Whilst she leans most to a literature-rich homeschool style, she also experimented with child-directed learning.

Since 2019, Samantha has been involved in home education advocacy and support as part of the Home Education Association. This has involved meeting quarterly with the HEU management, annually with the Education Minister and assisting home educators in a variety of ways. A particular passion has been to gain equity and clarity for home educated students in accessing TAFE and university studies whilst still in high school. With that mission nearly accomplished, she hopes to create clearer pathways to university for students who have finished home education.

Samantha and her husband have served with Power to Change, ministering to university students and those reaching and discipling them, for over 34 and 28 years respectively. She loves seeing God-pleasing change in her own life and the lives of others. In her non-homeschool, non-work/volunteer hours, she likes to walk, connect with friends and read. Two of her love languages are ice cream and any food she doesn't have to cook for herself.

Break Out Session

The break out session is a new session for 2025. We wanted to take the opportunity to study God's Word together - focusing on placing God at the centre of the challenge to "Fit It All In". Our key verse for the break out session will be Matthew 6:33. Smaller groups will be lead by the conference team.

Q&A Panel

The Q&A Panel is also a new session for 2026. In this session attendees will have the opportunity to ask our panel of experts their burning homeschool questions. You can ask anything from "how do I get through the day?" to "how can my homeschooler access higher education and training without a school certificate or ATAR?" and our panel can help.

Bring your questions with you or you're also welcome to send in your questions for the panel prior to the conference.

This year we are blessed to have the following wonderful women for our panel of experts:

Samantha Bryan - Wife, mother, homeschool advocate,
Navigating Higher Education pathways available to homeschooled kids and navigating the Queensland Govt Home Education Unit experience

Rachel Jones - Wife, mother, performing artist, creator, and teacher
Navigating homeschool life with high school and primary school aged kids and a full schedule of extra curriculars

Fiona Oakley - Wife, mother, member of the board for Faith Christian School
Navigating the Distance Education experience

Barb Somervaille - Wife, mother, grandmother, garden consultant, artist
Encouragement for navigating homeschool life

Kellie Adams - Wife, mother, historian/writer, dressmaker/textile artist
Not at all an expert, only a fellow sojourner discovering and navigating special needs and learning differences

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