The first group of speakers have been announced for the Learn Sheffield COVID Recovery Festival and it includes several colleagues well-known speakers to Sheffield school leaders.
The speakers at the first batch of sessions to be announced for the Learn Sheffield COVID Recovery Festival include some familiar faces for Sheffield school leaders. Several sessions are led by colleagues who live and work in Sheffield, including Greg Fell, Bethan Plant, Zoe Brownlie, Ian Naylor, Sophie Hunter, Emma Banks, Adam Fuller and Gareth Jones. Other speakers may come from further afield but they are still well known to colleagues in Sheffield. Marc Rowland and David Bartram are long term friends of Learn Sheffield (something we hope will soon also be true of Sir David Carter) and Jenny Mosely has been working with schools here for many years.
More information about some of the speakers is below and look out for further announcements on the festival website.
Greg Fell & Bethan Plant (Wednesday 2 September)
Bethan Plant is a public health specialist who has become very well-known and highly respected by Sheffield school leaders during the pandemic. She has worked for both local authorities and the NHS and has a special interest in the field of children and young people’s health and wellbeing, and reducing health inequalities.
Greg Fell has been the Director of Public Health for Sheffield since February 2016. He is also well-known to Sheffield school leaders as a former speaker (about Adverse Childhood Experiences) at a leader briefing. Greg’s work has included social research in a maternity ward, multiple roles in health promotion and public health before joining the public health training scheme. Greg then worked as a consultant in public health in Bradford in the PCT then Bradford council.
Zoe Brownlie (Tuesday 8 September)
Dr Zoe Brownlie has had over 20 years of experience as a clinical psychologist for Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust and has been the lead for the Sheffield Healthy Minds team since 2016. Sheffield Healthy Minds is a collaborative endeavour between local schools and CAMHS to promote emotional well-being across the school community. Zoe’s work alongside Sheffield schools in the Healthy Minds project makes her another familiar face to school leaders.
Jenny Mosley (Thursday 10 September)
Jenny Mosley is a highly acclaimed national and international educational consultant, trainer and author. Based in the UK, with 45 years of experience in schools, Jenny has developed the ‘Golden Model’, interweaving rafts of key ideas promoting staff and pupil wellbeing, listening systems, positive behaviour, school values and positive social times. With the aim of creating safe learning communities where all children and adults feel valued, respected and listened to, Jenny’s key areas of expertise lie in staffrooms, classrooms, dining halls and playgrounds.
All of Jenny’s systems promote wellbeing in schools. Her ‘Five Wells For Wellbeing’ were adopted by the National College of School Leadership, UK. Jenny has taught part time on a Masters of Education at two universities and her work has been featured many times in the press and on the BBC. More recently Jenny has created therapeutic training resources aimed at School Recovery and continues to create online resources so that schools can to access her treasure trove of support for positive relationships, respectful school communities, speaking and really listening to each other and, importantly, fun, games and happiness in schools. More here - www.circle-time.co.uk
David Bartram OBE (Friday 11 September)
As a specialist SEND consultant, David has visited and worked with well over three hundred schools working collaboratively with London Challenge, the National College and the Department for Education (DFE). He was director for SEND at the London Leadership Strategy, advisor to the Mayor of London’s education team and currently provides support to a range of teaching school alliances and local authorities on the strategic development of SEND provision.
David is author of the SEND Review Guide, a national peer-review framework that has now been downloaded by over 4,000 schools. He is also editor of Great Expectations, leading an effective SEND strategy in school. David has worked closely with Learn Sheffield over the past two years and is a member of the Learn Sheffield Inclusion team.
Sir David Carter (Tuesday 15 September)
Sir David Carter was the National Schools Commissioner from February 2016 to August 2018. After a long career as a teacher and then a head teacher, he served as the CEO of the Cabot Learning Federation from 2007 to 2014 and was one of the first National Leaders of Education. Since standing down as National Schools Commissioner in 2018, he has continued to provide support for executive heads, chief executives and governors serving pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Sir David will be working closely with Learn Sheffield in the year ahead, both in support of leadership development programmes and also as an advisor to the Learn Sheffield board.
Sophie Hunter (Friday 18 September)
Sophie Hunter is the Programme Manager for Sheffield’s Local Cultural Education Partnership; Create Sheffield. Create Sheffield work strategically with local artists, cultural organisations, schools and young people, to bring arts and culture to all those aged 0-24, removing barriers to engagement where they exist. Over a split recorded and live zoom session, Sophie will offer practical support for arts and creativity in the recovery curriculum, in addition to discussing its role and value.
Marc Rowland (Wednesday 23 September)
Marc is a recognised national expert on the Pupil Premium and has visited over 500 individual schools and spoken with approximately 10,000 school leaders about their use of the additional funding. He is the author for 2 books, ‘An Updated Practical Guide to the Pupil Premium’ and ‘Learning Without Labels’. Marc is currently the adviser for improving outcomes for disadvantaged learners for the Unity Schools Partnership, as well as working with the Education Endowment Foundation’s national Research School Network on the roll out of the national Pupil Premium training programme. He is also working on a range of programmes focussed on educational disadvantage nationally.
Marc has worked with Learn Sheffield from its inception, first in the development of the Sheffield Priorities, during his time as Deputy Director of the National Education Trust and more recently as Learn Sheffield’s Policy Director.