Profile
Angela Waugh, director of Y Schools Queensland, has led the shift of a group of individual Special Assistance School campuses into an increasingly connected education system. “The achievement is not simply growth; it is strengthening the model while expanding access,” she says.
Many students arrive after repeated disengagement, exclusion or loss of confidence in education, so Waugh sees the gains as promising. According to her, attendance rose by almost six percentage points year on year in 2026, with more than 1,000 students enrolled. Their records show that 80% of senior students completed at least one nationally recognised certificate over the past 12 months, and 86% of parents and carers believe Y Schools is better than their young person’s previous school.
“They represent young people reconnecting, achieving and beginning to see a future for themselves again,” she adds.
For Waugh, the figures test whether the school is delivering for their students, and that starts with belonging. “That is the sequence: belonging creates the conditions for engagement; engagement creates the conditions for learning; learning creates achievement; and achievement creates future choice,” she says.
The sequence only holds if achievement is real, and Waugh is candid about where it falls short. Academic outcomes are not yet where she wants every measure to be, so the network has strengthened moderation, curriculum consistency and earlier planning for the Queensland Certificate of Education.
“Leadership is not about claiming excellence; it is about building the evidence, confronting the gaps and improving until the outcomes match the ambition,” Waugh says. On theory and practice, she is just as direct: “Theory matters, but only if it changes what happens for a student on Monday morning.”
Waugh’s biggest challenge is scaling without diluting quality. Growth only matters if the education stays consistently strong. “My role is to ensure that a young person’s chance of success does not depend on which campus they attend or which exceptional adult happens to be supporting them,” she says. To that end, she keeps student outcomes at the centre of executive decisions and builds the accountability needed to make excellence repeatable.
Leading at this scale has also changed how Waugh works. Earlier in her leadership she often stepped into problems because she knew she could solve them, but she found this could weaken a system when other leaders were not required to take responsibility.
“I have learned that leading by example is not about being the person who works the longest hours or has every answer,” Waugh says. Her approach has shifted since. “My role now is to create clarity, build capability and hold the line on what matters.”
Beyond its current campuses, the model is now extending through regional growth, online schooling and new responses connected to youth justice and early intervention. Waugh is unequivocal about the impact she wants her work to leave. She says, “I want specialist re-engagement education to be seen not as a last chance, but as a high-quality, intentional form of schooling with lessons for education more broadly.”
107 Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley, QLD 4006
0412372510
angela.waugh@ymcaqueensland.org.au
au.linkedin.com/in/angela-waugh
yschools.qld.edu.au
Angela Waugh
Director
Y Schools Queensland
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2015–2023
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2024–Present
2025–Present
Head of Humanities and Languages at
2015–2023
Leader of Learning at Xavier Flexi Schools Network
2021–2023
Head of Schools and Quality at
2023–2024
Director of Education at The Industry School
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Milestones
“I know this seems pretty simple, but [my philosophy] is always doing what’s right for clients and not what is best for me”
Collin Bruce,
Dominion Lending Centres
“I had to crawl my way out of debt and build up my mortgage business. I never forget that feeling, and I try to never take a new lead for granted. Every deal counts”
Collin Bruce,
Dominion Lending Centres
The professional philosophy that underpins all of it is strikingly basic – and Bruce knows it. “I know this seems pretty simple,” he says, “but always doing what’s right for clients and not what is best for me. I never have to worry about something coming back to me from a previous client.”
He has helped clients through years-long credit rehabilitation without earning a cent along the way. He has never placed a client in a product he wasn’t prepared to fully stand behind. The result is a practice built on trust generating its own momentum: repeat business and referrals that arrive without prompting, from clients who know the difference between a broker who serves them and one who services a transaction.
In Alberta, where Bruce has built a particularly strong market presence, his name is amplified by a heavy advertising campaign across television and radio – channels he values not simply for reach but for credibility. The ads, he notes, help legitimize him in a market where clients are choosing who to trust with some of the largest financial decisions of their lives. Alongside that visibility, he has cultivated deep relationships with builders and financial planners, creating a diversified pipeline of leads that insulates the business against the inevitable swings of the rate cycle.
The operational side of the business has evolved with equal deliberateness. The appointment of a dedicated ‘Director of Wow’ – a role conceived to ensure every client interaction exceeds expectation – and the adoption of Dominion Lending Centres’ Gold Rush CRM platform have together driven a meaningful uplift in repeat client business over the past year.
The present year of 2026 brings its own complexities. With clients emerging from a period of historically low rates and confronting sharply higher mortgage costs, Bruce has tilted his focus toward refinancing – helping existing borrowers navigate a transition that, for many, has been genuinely painful. He is also investing in AI tools to sharpen lead generation and streamline internal processes, a measured embrace of technology from someone who has never confused efficiency with the thing it is meant to serve.