Vale Bill Conway
25 November 2024
We are deeply saddened by the passing of our dear friend and colleague, Bill Conway, on Saturday 23 November (Australian time) from an unexpected medical episode. Bill was a valued leader, mentor, collaborator and steadfast supporter for many within our Montessori community. He was also the loving partner to our dear colleague and friend, Kei Ikeda.
There will undoubtedly be many tributes honouring Bill’s extraordinary life and the profound impact he made, particularly in the Montessori community not only in Australia but globally. He contributed to the Montessori community in so many ways. However today we reflect on his significant contributions to Montessori training.
Bill was a long-term advocate of high-quality Montessori training and a supporter and facilitator of making more AMI training available in Australia over many years. In 2017 when school principal of Montessori East, Bill facilitated a space for the 6-12 AMI Diploma training on the school’s premises which involved so much more than just providing the space. This was an important and critical step in making that training possible.
When SMTC was established in 2018, Bill was one of the people involved in discussions supporting that establishment. Bill championed the importance of quality training in many roles, serving on the boards of Montessori schools and centres and, importantly, in his role with our national AMI affiliate MSCA. A true diplomat, he believed in the strength of collaboration and worked tirelessly to bring people together, finding common ground and shared purpose.
Bill generously gave his support in the Montessori community whenever he could with kindness and humour, whether through insightful guidance or mentoring or even the simple yet profound act of helping our SMTC team to lay tiles at our Balmain training centre in 2022 when resources were scarce.
Bill believed that raising the quality of Montessori leadership was essential to help Montessori schools, centres and organisations to develop and thrive. He was a co-founder of the Montessori school leadership training developed in Thailand that evolved into the AMI Administrators Certificate course. Bill became an AMI facilitator for the AMI Administrators course and has delivered the course with SMTC five times in recent years with fellow facilitator, Karen Bennetts. He has generously shared his knowledge and wisdom with over 90 leaders from around Australia and internationally through those SMTC courses. He also supported leaders through Administrator courses with other AMI training centres around the world. Only last week, Bill was working with SMTC and MSCA to see how we could advance aspects of Montessori training for the future.
Bill has been a model of leadership for so many in our wider community and we are so grateful to have had the opportunity to know him and to learn from his experience and expertise. His contribution to training and to our Montessori community will be sorely missed as we continue on this journey and the important work that Bill believed in.
Our thoughts go out to Kei and to Bill’s children, grandchildren, family and friends.
Vale Bill.
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