Haili Hughes

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Associate Professor Haili Hughes is passionate about the people who make education work: teachers, mentors, school leaders, teacher educators and the communities that support them. Her career has been dedicated to strengthening the conditions in which teachers develop, thrive and remain in the profession.

As Associate Dean for Professional Experience and Partnerships at La Trobe University, Haili leads work to strengthen professional experience and build meaningful, sustainable partnerships between the University, schools and education systems. Her role brings together many of the areas that have shaped her career, including teacher development, mentoring, instructional coaching, professional learning, school–university partnerships and system improvement.

As an expert in teacher mentoring, teacher agency, instructional coaching, professional development at scale and teacher retention, Haili is particularly interested in how good ideas can travel into practice without losing their substance. At La Trobe, she applies this expertise to developing the partnerships, structures and shared approaches needed to prepare, support and retain excellent teachers.

Haili brings to the role experience as Director of Professional Development at a multi-academy trust, working across 11 schools, and as Professor of Teacher Mentoring and Coaching at Academica University of Applied Sciences. This combination of system leadership, academic work and school-based practice has given her a distinctive perspective on how sustainable teacher development can be designed, implemented and evaluated across complex educational systems.

She has written ten education books, contributed to more than 30 edited volumes, published peer-reviewed articles, and helped shape national guidance in England and Australia.

Need an expert speaker who will have your audience laughing and crying, galvanised into action and still talking about the experience a year later? I'm your woman. Here's why…
 

I'm a multi award-winning speaker with over 3000 keynotes under my belt. My keynotes stay with people for life by offering new & insightful perspectives on resilience, wellbeing, diversity & human-first leadership.
 

I have successfully created positive disruption in the education system delivering keynotes to teachers, leaders & CEOs. I advise governments, coach c-suite execs & have earned the nickname 'British Oprah' in the US.
 

What's my story? Well, I should be lost in a world of exploitation, prison, or dead - but I'm not. My TEDx Talk explains how Everyday Heroes interrupted my trajectory & changed my life: https://youtu.be/q3xoZXSW5yc. It's why a profit % of every keynote I deliver goes to supporting the leaders of tomorrow in schools!
 

From a child locked in a basement to the chaos of foster care & teen homelessness, I beat the odds, made it to university, became a teacher, & went on to become a CEO, TV presenter & stand up comedian!
 

My story would make a binge-worthy Netflix series. However, I focus on how I survived, thrived & went on to drive change. I'm the world-class reframer I am today thanks to the human-first leaders who had my back: A handful of teachers, foster carers, social workers & leaders. Now, I'm moulding more engagement & resilience in companies like:
 

👉🏾 Skillsoft
👉🏾 Stryker
👉🏾 Gucci
👉🏾 BBC
 

So, why have I been booked for 3K+ keynote talks? Because my talks aren't just "inspiring." They cause people to make changes. To think, feel & do things differently. I change people's minds about settling & give them the boost they need to take action.
 

As a speaker, I show up as my full-fat self. I share the secret to serving society without sacrificing your own soul & how being professionally vulnerable & personally authentic can increase engagement.

Most of all I help people to leave a lifelong legacy & create purpose alongside profit, & it doesn't end there. My team & I create ongoing impact through workshops & leadership coaching to build deep connections & invincibility into your organisation.
 

KEYNOTES TO INSPIRE ACTION
 

🔥 Reinventing the engagement culture
🦸 Going beyond a growth mindset
🎤 How to transform your work & life
❤️ Embedding ambitious resilience
 

Speaker Of The Year 2022 - WINNER
Best Live Gig 2022 - WINNER
Best Speaker - HIGHLY COMMENDED

 Andy Griffith began his teaching career in 1989 and he still works with young people in schools on Merseyside, most notably All Saints High School in Kirkby. He is best known as the creator of the Outstanding Teaching Intervention (OTI) programme which has twice been recognised in the prestigious TES Awards. This programme emerged from his one day course, Outstanding Teaching which has been attended by over 25,000 teachers throughout the UK. The OTI programme is now an international franchise involving over thirty quality-assured trainers, its content based around his two best-selling education books, Engaging Learners and Teaching Backwards. Andy has been a prolific trainer in the past 20 years where he has developed an excellent reputation for delivering excellent, incisive and memorable training courses.

In recent years Andy has helped a number of businesses and other organisations to raise the morale and performance of their staff. He has written about this in his latest book, The Learning Imperative (Business Book of the Year Award in 2019) which spawned the training course Leading for Excellence. 

Andy is also director of the community interest company, Dramatic Recovery which is at the vanguard of the social prescribing movement - using drama and performance to support people with mental health challenges some of whom have been referred through their GPs.

He has just released his latest book, The Working Classroom, which looks at the role education can play in addressing class discrimination and the best way to develop young people’s cultural capital.

Specialist Areas

• Pedagogy
• Assessment
• Curriculum Design
• Literacy
• Leadership of Learning
• Working with disadvantaged learners and communities
• Developing Cultural Capital
• How to train and develop staff 
• Expert speaker

Publications

• Engaging Learners
• Teaching Backwards
• The Learning Imperative
• The Working Classroom

Jennifer is an English teacher, school leader, author, blogger and speaker.

She is currently the Executive Director of English and Literacy at Carlton Academy Trust in West Yorkshire, where the impact of her work is driving significant improvement in literacy outcomes. Over the course of her career, she has worked at a number of schools in the county with senior roles in teaching and learning, curriculum, research and standards.

She is the author of the best-selling books, ‘How to Teach English Literature: Overcoming Cultural Poverty’ (2019), ‘Teach Like a Writer’ (2020), ‘The Metacognition Handbook’ (2021) and ‘Essential Grammar: The Resource Book Every Secondary English Teacher Will Need‘ (2023). Jennifer is also excited to be working on two new writing projects, due for publication in 2027.

Using her platform as FunkyPedagogy, Jennifer’s work has grown beyond writing to include: an online CPD library which raises funds for a number of charities through sales ; The Reading List Project; a guest blogging platform; a free resource library, and frequent appearances as a speaker at educational conferences, events, and on podcasts. Jennifer is the founder of 'The Literacy Community'; a network of over 1200 literacy leaders and teachers, sharing best practice and support for free across the profession.

Jenny runs a range of courses and programs to support school leaders, including coaching programs for heads of department. 

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Dylan Wiliam is Emeritus Professor of Educational Assessment at University College London.

After a first degree in mathematics and physics, and one year teaching in a private school, he taught in urban schools for seven years, during which time he earned further degrees in mathematics and mathematics education.

In 1984 he joined Chelsea College, University of London, which later became part of King's College London. During this time he worked on developing innovative assessment schemes in mathematics before taking over the leadership of the mathematics teacher education program at King’s.

Between 1989 and 1991 he was the Academic Coordinator of the Consortium for Assessment and Testing in Schools, which developed a variety of statutory and non-statutory assessments for the national curriculum of England and Wales.

After his return to King’s, he completed his PhD, addressing some of the technical issues thrown up by the adoption of a system of age-independent criterion-referenced levels of attainment in the national curriculum of England and Wales.

From 1996 to 2001 he was the Dean and Head of the School of Education at King’s College London, and from 2001 to 2003, he served as Assistant Principal of the College. In 2003 he moved to the USA, as Senior Research Director at the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, NJ. In 2006 he returned to the UK as Deputy Director of the Institute of Education, University of London. In 2010 he stood down as Deputy Director to spend more time on research and teaching.

His recent work has focused on the use of assessment to support learning (sometimes called formative assessment). He was the co-author, with Paul Black of a major review of the research evidence on formative assessment published and since then has worked with groups of teachers all over the world on developing formative assessment practices.

Anna Ephgrave has been fascinated by babies and young children her whole life. She has volunteered in various capacities and also has ten years’ experience as a foster parent. She has over 27 years’ teaching experience, working for many years as an advanced skills teacher and most recently as an Assistant Head Teacher.

She has led her Early Years’ teams to four consecutive Outstanding grades from Ofsted. She promotes child-led learning in which children are given autonomy and respect. 

Anna now works as an independent author, expert speaker and consultant, supporting education practitioners both in the UK and abroad. She has had five books published including “Planning in the Moment”. Anna now lives in Bristol splitting her time between training work and looking after her grandchildren.

Specialist Areas

• Early years 
• Child-initiated play
• Planning in the Moment

Publications 

• The Reception Year in Action
• Nursery Year in Action
• Year One in Action
• Planning in the Moment with Young Children
• Planning in the Moment with Two and Three Year Olds

Recent Feedback

“Best training I have attended in 25 years”.

Reception teacher

“Inspirational” 

Head teacher.

Dr Alex Blower is an author, researcher, and thought leader in education, with a focus on inequality and the experiences of young working-class men. After completing his doctoral research in 2020, which explored access to university for white working-class boys in the West Midlands, Alex has become a regular speaker at national and international conferences. He is also a frequent media commentator, appearing on platforms such as the BBC, LBC, and The Times.

In 2023, Alex founded Boys’ Impact, a UK-wide network of educators committed to closing the gap in educational outcomes for boys eligible for Free School Meals through evidence-based approaches.

Alex’s lived experience as a young man growing up in a working-class town, facing mental ill health and exclusion from school while caring for a parent with addiction and mental health challenges, fuels his passion for educational equity. His journey from exclusion to PhD graduate and national advocate is at the heart of his work.

In this inspiring keynote, Alex shares his personal story and the driving force behind his mission to challenge inequality in education. He explores how his background shaped his academic and professional journey, culminating in the creation of a national movement to support disadvantaged boys in education.

Alex’s training equips educators with the tools to design, deliver, and evaluate targeted interventions for boys eligible for Free School Meals. It covers:

• Socio-economic inequality and normative masculinities
• The influence of the manosphere and online culture
• Evidence-based strategies for school-level change
• A flexible framework built around a robust Theory of Change

Each participant leaves with a bespoke, actionable plan tailored to their school’s context.

Alex’s first book, Lost Boys: How Education is Failing Young Working-Class Men, was published in July and is available to order now.

Professor Paul McGee is one of Europe's leading keynote speakers on change, resilience, communication and the human side of high performance. Best known as the creator of the internationally acclaimed SUMO Method, Paul has spent more than three decades helping leaders and organisations navigate uncertainty, embrace change and achieve sustainable success.

A Sunday Times bestselling author, Paul's books have sold more than 250,000 copies in 13 languages, making his practical, memorable approach to personal and professional development accessible to audiences around the world.

A Visiting Professor at the University of Chester Business School, Paul combines evidence-based insights from behavioural psychology and neuroscience with practical wisdom, storytelling, humour and audience interaction. His engaging, high-energy delivery equips audiences with simple tools they can immediately apply to improve resilience, wellbeing, communication, leadership and performance under pressure.

Paul has spoken to more than 1,000 organisations across 40 countries, working with clients including Harrods, Adidas, GSK, Virgin, Lloyds Bank, the NHS, Manchester City Football Club and many of the world's leading organisations. Whether delivering a keynote to thousands or facilitating leadership development for senior teams, Paul is renowned for helping people think better, lead better and perform at their best when it matters most.

His distinctive combination of warmth, credibility and humour makes him one of the most sought-after keynote speakers for conferences, leadership events and professional development programmes, leaving audiences inspired, entertained and equipped with practical strategies that create lasting impact.

Mary Myatt is an education adviser, writer and speaker. She trained as an RE teacher and is a former local authority adviser and inspector. She engages with pupils, teachers and leaders about learning, leadership and the curriculum. 

Mary has written extensively about leadership, school improvement and the curriculum: Her most recent work focuses on the Huh Curriculum series for primary, secondary, SEND and Alternative Provision with John Tomsett. 

She has established Myatt & Co an online platform with films for ongoing professional development including the popular Primary Subject Networks and Secondary Subject Networks. In order to meet the demand ongoing curriculum and leadership development, Mary has set up the Huh Academy. 

Her most recent work is the development of The Teachers’ Collection, underpinned by the findings from the ‘Faster read’ research from the University of Sussex.

Mary is a patron of CAPE, she has been a governor in three schools, and a trustee for a Multi Academy Trust. She maintains that there are no quick fixes and that great outcomes for pupils are not achieved through tick boxes.

www.marymyatt.com 

X: @MaryMyatt

During my tenure as CEO of the fourth largest Multi-Academy Trust in England, I have led on improvement of 47 schools moving from special measures/failing status to Good and Outstanding, whilst successfully establishing and opening a number of Government funded schools through the Free school route. With 52 Primary and secondary Academies serving some of the most disadvantaged communities, and a workforce of 5000 staff, I am proud to have led, grown, and developed one of the UK’s leading academy Trusts. I have overseen the growth of the Trust onboarding 41 of the schools and currently the Trust is undergoing further growth of a further three secondary academies. 

This is all underpinned by my unique 36-year career in the sector, both as a serving headteacher across seven schools in the Primary, Secondary, All Through, and Special sector including residential SEMH.

As one of the Founding CEOs of the newly established National Institute of Teaching providing the golden thread of Teacher development and Research across the country. Having won the government contract of £126 million to deliver our vision of a school system that nurtures the talents of teachers and leaders at all stages of their careers, so they can provide children with the world-class education they deserve.

I am passionate about developing and enabling others demonstrated by my previous work as a Leadership advisor in Future Leaders. I also have a particular expertise in behaviour management, having co-authored a best-selling self help guide for teachers “Why are you shouting at me?”. 

I am active across the education sector as a Trustee of E-ACT (National Sponsor), a Trustee of Place2BE the country’s leading children Mental Health Charity and I am Founding Trustee of the National Institute of Teaching that provides Teacher Development and Research to thousands of teachers and leaders across the country. I play a key role in the education sector, and I currently chair and led on a number of national conferences where we teach the next generation of CEOs in the sector. 

I stepped down as CEO in September 2023 to lead my own consultancy, for which I am using my knowledge, skills and expertise working to supporting leaders of schools and Trusts to succeed 

across the education sector.

Areas of Expertise:

- Keynotes to large audiences

- One to one mentoring 

- Developing authentic leadership and growing a vision

- School Improvement 

- Developing organisational design and strategy 

- Developing a people strategy

- Developing effective governance

- Developing a growth strategy 

- Learning and Development  

Recent Feedback

John has been instrumental in helping our strategic thinking develop at a critical point of our trust maturing. His experience, expertise and networks have been shared with generosity, integrity and humour. His ability to connect with teams of all disciplines means that his work is well received and impactful.

Sarah Bennett CEO of Inspiring Futures through Learning  

John’s style combines strategic vision and mission, his commitment to education and societal challenges is inspirational.

He is extremely knowledgeable in relation to the high level challenges faced by leaders, he is solution focussed and always considered in his advice.
John is generous with his time. He sees the root of problems easily, and through his experience and extensive network offers solution focussed strategies and support.
Shaun Ireston CEO of the Great Schools Trust