Theme: Thinking Differently

TEDxNorwichED is a contemporary, relevant and inspiring TEDx event, which is being designed to stimulate discussion and action around how we can ‘think differently’ about education.

You’ll hear a carefully curated program of talks by renowned ‘thinkers’- both within the education field and beyond. Each speaker will present an ‘an idea worth sharing’ about education and how it could be improved, through an inspiring and engaging ‘TED style’ presentation. Expect short, lively and entertaining presentations which really make you think.
There will be plenty of carefully planned opportunities for networking and discussion, so that the event can act as a springboard for real, grass roots, change.

The overarching ‘theme’ for our event is THINKING DIFFERENTLY.

The event will therefore give a stage to some of the best speakers in our region and the UK, and attract a wide ranging audience. It is aimed at sparking a discussion, debate and grass roots movement about how we can truly ‘think differently’ in education.

Do you want to be part of it?

The Space
Roundtree Way
Norwich, Norfolk, NR7 8SQ
United Kingdom

Ali Marlow

Ali is a Londoner who has fallen in love with Norwich! Whilst Ali was studying to become an Occupational Therapist, she developed an interest in helping the homeless so decided to take her skills into the charity sector. Ali works for LEAP, who support those who are disadvantaged to live a fulfilling life and gain experience and employment. Ali runs the GOALS course (motivational and personal development course) and is passionate about helping people unlock the potential inside themselves to move their lives forward and achieve what they want to achieve! Ali also co-ordinates Love Norwich, a community group, which runs self-esteem courses, creates Christmas hampers for families in need and much more! Ali is currently training to be a life coach – she likes to keep busy!

Alison Peacock

Alison Peacock DBE, DL, DLitt, MEd, BA, is co-author of ‘Creating Learning without Limits’ (2012). This research explores an alternative improvement agenda; identifying key dispositions for school leadership where every child and adult is valued and where no one is labelled by so-called ‘ability’. Alison is Executive Headteacher of The Wroxham School, a primary school in Hertfordshire. She led the school out of special measures less than a year after her appointment as headteacher (Jan 2003) and it was subsequently judged by Ofsted to be outstanding. Amongst many other roles, Alison was appointed by the DfE as a member of the Commission for Assessment Without Levels and as a member of the ITT Expert Group and CPD Expert Group. She is a trustee of Teach First and a member of the Future Leaders Advisory Group.

Alistar Bryce-Clegg

Alistar enjoyed a successful 10 year career as the Head teacher of three-form entry Infant school and Early Years Unit in Cheshire. Alongside his headship he established a consultancy career specialising in the education of children in the Early Years. Most of his time is spent supporting practitioners in their settings or delivering key notes and training, specialising all aspects of Early Years practice and management for both the maintained and non-maintained sectors nationally and internationally. Alistar is also an award-winning author and product designer.

Annette Du Bois

Children's confidence expert.

Annette Du Bois is a renowned Children’s and Teen’s Confidence development expert and author with over 15 years experience helping children overcome mental blocks and psychological barriers. Annette is an expert contributor to the media and regularly appears on radio and TV. Annette developed the 'CHAMPS Applied Self-Confidence and Self-Esteem Transformation Coaching' system, which is a formulated and highly effective confidence and achievement coaching system for young people. Annette has worked with hundreds of young people, Schools and Educational Establishments giving them tools and skills to overcome everyday challenges and mind based issues, such as fear, anxiety, body confidence and limiting self esteem. Annette is proud to have been the only confidence coach to be chosen by Sky to become a Sky Academy Ambassador and has featured on Sky News and Sky Morning stories talking about kids confidence and unlocking potential.

Catriona Maclay

Founding Director

Catriona Maclay is the Founding Director (or Captain) of The Hackney Pirates, which she set up with friends and collaborators in 2010 to support young people in developing their literacy, confidence and perseverance. Catriona trained as a ‘Teach First’ teacher in Edmonton. As subject leader for Citizenship she developed and implemented a school-wide active Citizenship curriculum to give young people the knowledge and practical experience they need to be informed, critical and engaged citizens. Catriona has also worked at Ashoka, the global association of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs, where she led the Venture programme to select and support leading social entrepreneurs in the UK.

Dr Rob Loe

Education Research Director

Appointed as Education Research Director on 1 January 2014, having been involved with Relational Research for several years, Robert has been in education for eighteen years. Having held a range of leadership roles in schools in East Anglia, and most recently as Assistant Principle at Thurston Community College, Suffolk, he has years of expertise within the field. Currently on sabbatical from teaching in order to focus on research, Robert is Director of The Relational Schools Project. The project explores the importance of fostering positive relationships between key stakeholders in schools. During his time in post, Robert has been a regular speaker at conferences and is co-author and editor of ‘The Relational Teacher’ a book which accompanies a documentary film of the same name which he also produced, along with his latest book, The Relational School.

Harry Dyer

Digital Sociologist

Harry is a Digital Sociologist at the University of East Anglia, who achieved a scholarship to complete his Masters in Social Science Research Methods. He was then granted scholarship funding for his ongoing PhD under the supervision of Professor Victoria Carrington. His research focuses upon identity formation and performance in online Social Networking Sites. Using Actor-Network Theory along with ideas drawn from multi-disciplinary backgrounds such as Comic Book Studies, his research aims to explore how technology and site design can shape and affect the creation and maintenance of identities across a wide range of technologies and Social Networking Sites.

Ian Dyball

Professional guitar teacher

Ian Dyball has been a professional guitar teacher for over thirty years. As a single parent he studied part-time with the Open University to gain post-graduate qualifications in music and philosophy and was later accepted as a cross-discipline Ph.D. candidate at the UEA. He spent two years researching philosophical aspects of ‘the performance mind’ before the financial constraints of academia forced a return to full-time teaching. This included sessional work as a music lecturer for UCS where he was module leader for the course ‘Performance; Preparation and Process’. Newly inspired, research in the field of ‘performance’ and ‘self’ is ongoing.

Jason Brown

Student

Jason is a Year 13 A level student studying at Wymondham High Academy. He is passionate about technology in education and has been working with Microsoft to promote technology in education since November 2013. Part of his role as a Worldwide Microsoft Student Ambassador is to promote and advocate the use of technology such as smartphones and tablets in the classroom and inspire students to make the most of the technology they have. He has presented at events in Seattle and London about technology in education.

Justin Miles

Professional Explorer

Justin Miles is a ‘professional explorer’. His adventures include exploring the Arctic, climbing mountains, crossing deserts and hacking his way through jungles. All of Justin's experiences are used to support charities and to fuel global education projects and initiatives. Justin turned his passion for adventure into his profession after a car accident in 1999 resulted in brain injuries which left him having to learn to walk and talk again from scratch. It was during his recovery that he decided that when he recovered he would become a professional explorer and use his experiences to support charities and inspire children to learn through innovative education programmes.

Kieran Miles

Entrepreneur

Like many young entrepreneurs, Kieran started his entrepreneurial journey selling sweets at school before moving onto eBay businesses, live events and digital marketing. When Kieran left college he wrote to the principal to share his thoughts on how his course could be modified to become more relevant and as a result started a new journey working with colleges across the country to create educational environments that inspired applied learning for a digital generation. Kieran is currently MD of content company; 3CMG, founder of leadership forum; The LeadWorldForum, and in 2015 became an Associate Fellow of the Royal Commonwealth Society.

Leah Stewart

Portfolio Career

Leah’s formal education culminated in a 1st Class Master of Science Degree after which she considered careers in academia, industry and business before beginning her own ‘portfolio career’ in 2015. Now she's actively exploring wide- ranging interests tethered to the cross-cutting themes of human connection and the meaning of education.

Mark Stevenson

Developer

Having worked with some of the largest companies in the UK (Liverpool FC, EDF Engery, Royal Navy), Mark is now at a lovely local agency, looking to bridge the gaps between education and development. Primarily a PHP developer and Agile Project Manager, he is always looking for new ways to learn new things, and bring people along with him!

Mary Myatt

Education Adviser

Mary Myatt is an education adviser, trainer and writer. She works in schools talking to students, teachers and leaders about learning, leadership and the curriculum. Mary’s mantra: ‘Running schools for children, not for Ofsted’. Her education blog has been described as ‘informative curtain-parting’ www.marymyatt.com

Matt Bagley

Director of Doing

Matt is the Director of Doing at Camouflaged Learning, the UK’s premier provider of interactive educational experiences. Over the past decade, Camouflaged Learning have designed and delivered exciting, engaging and challenging projects to over 350 schools & 89 multinational businesses and charities, working with over 91,000 students along the way to universally positive acclaim. Every project that Camouflaged Learning produces is an exhilarating educational experience that informs, invigorates and inspires students on matters of mathematics, science, engineering, technology, enterprise, teamwork and much, much more. Critically however, the students who take part in these activities don’t notice this: all they see is Camouflaged Learning have tasked them to undertake a massive, seemingly impossible, real-world challenge that they cannot wait to immerse themselves in. And, while they’re focusing on that – without realising it – they’re learning. Sneaky, huh?

Nadia Prentice

Student

Nadia is 13 years old and dances at Platinum Dance Academy in Bury St Edmunds. She competes nationally as a solo street dancer and is competing in the UDO World Street Dance Championships this summer with her group Distortion. Nadia’s favourite styles of street dance are Vogue and Waacking.

Owen Morgan

Owen is Business Manager of a social enterprise venue in Norwich which he founded in his role of Executive Pastor at Proclaimers Church. He has worked in a range of business settings including touring as frontman of a punk band. A graduate in Politics and Philosophy, Owen now brings a rigorous philosophical approach to everything he does. He speaks on culture creation, coaches leaders and is always seeking out new opportunities. Owen is a Social Entrepreneur, speaker, coach, pastor and leader and life-long learner.

Philip Montague

Sector development.

Philip focuses on 'third horizon thinking' for Microsoft, focusing on education. He constantly asks- "what would happen if..." and explores the impact of technology on education.

Rachel Jones

Teacher

Rachel Jones, is a Google Certified Teacher interested in creativity and innovation in the classroom. She thrives on trying new things and engaging and empowering students. Her blog was a finalist in the 2013 EduBlog awards and was recommended by The Guardian as a must-read for 2014 and she is a regular blogger for The Huffington Post. She was recommended by The Guardian as a must-read edu-bloggerfor 2014, and was on the Education Foundation 'Innovators of the year' list 2013/14.

Richard Dwyer

Gymnast, Stuntman and company founder.

Richard 38 years old, is a former regional gymnast turned professional stuntman for film and television. Founder and owner of UK Flair gymnastic schools for children and a partner in 4BM ventures, growing UK business through investment. Richard’s passion to build confident kids through sport has him blogging, speaking and teaching his goal driven and fear bashing techniques to children, business owners, schools and parents using his unique confidence feedback model that was first created by Richard to build super-confident gymnastics coaches and now used by 1000’s of children on a weekly basis across the network of Flair gymnastics clubs. Richard is fast building a reputation as a kids confidence expert.

Robert Ashton

Social entrepreneur

Robert Ashton is a social entrepreneur, business author and campaigner. He works independently, which enables him to challenge bureaucracy and champion common sense. He converts confusing conundrums into simple solutions. He founded Swarm Apprenticeships in 2013, a social business that uses an enterprise qualification to connect bright young people with attitude with small business owners with aspiration. Swarm won investment from Big Issue Invest in 2014 and an RSA Scaling Grant in 2015. He is Patron of Norfolk & Suffolk Relate, a Vice Patron of Norfolk Community Foundation, a Fellow of the RSA and was recently appointed by the cooperative movement to the Board of Trust Norfolk-SEN.

Siam Kidd

Investor

Ex-RAF pilot and now full-time investor, Siam created TheRealisticTrader.com in order to help as many people into financial independence as possible. He believes that Financial Education is the most important thing we all need to develop in order to semi-retire within 5-10 years instead of the 40 years which most people aim for. Siam also manages a trading fund which was up over 60% in its first year and he famously made over £422k in 30 minutes through trading the 2015 Black Monday Stock Market panic. His long term goal is to revolutionize the UK state schooling system.”

Steff Aqurone

Film producer, entrepreneur and co-founder.

Steffan Aquarone is a UK entrepreneur, film producer and co-founder of Droplet: an app that lets you pay in your favourite places hands-free, and collect loyalty rewards on your phone. Steff’s projects usually involve disruptive business models and collaboration between large groups of people. The most notable prior to Droplet was feature-film Tortoise in Love which was made by the entire village of Kingston Bagpuize in Oxfordshire. Tortoise in Love premiered in London’s Leicester Square where the red carpet was flanked by tractors and watched live by 5 million people. It releases worldwide this year. Steff’s background is as a home-schooled member of Education Otherwise, alumnus of Norwich School and graduate of Warwick University (Politics). Prior to graduation he co-founded a Top 50 UK corporate film production company and has worked with accounts including John Lewis, Royal Bank of Scotland, Tesco, News Corporation, Vodafone, Land Rover and American Express.

Sue Wright

Entrepreneur and business coach.

Sue is a descendent of Norfolk rebel Robert Kett, which may explain why she challenges the status quo. Her first career was in the Royal Navy, when the ratio of females to males was 1:50. An auto-didactic, Sue graduated from The Open University in 2012, after successfully climbing the corporate ladder and running businesses in the healthcare sector. Sue is currently on her third incarnation as an entrepreneur and business coach. She believes we're failing to equip young people for work and for life. The solution lies in an approach that helps individuals reach their potential, regardless of academic ability.

Tom Gilliford

Project engagement manager.

Tom is an educational thinker, campaigner and design enthusiast. He works for the Royal Society for Arts (the RSA) as a Project Engagement Manager for the Creative Learning and Development team. Working to turn the innovative ideas of the RSA into reality, Tom created the RSA’s Innovative Education network, a group of school leaders, teachers and thinkers who prototype and pilot new ideas in education across the UK and beyond.Before working at the RSA Tom was a teacher and helped to found the London Academy of Excellence, now one of the country’s leading state-funded sixth forms.

Vic Goddard

Council-estate born and raised, Vic has worked his way up through the system from a PE teacher via Head of Department and a brief stint in Cairo, to being one of the most high-profile, controversial, innovative and bluntly passionate heads we have met. And if you had seen Educating Essex on Channel you will know that for yourself. Vic, a qualified and experienced Dive Master to boot, not only brings drive, creativity and innovation to the role, putting the children he so clearly cares for centre stage at every opportunity, he also brings the human touch to what he unashamedly describes as ‘his other family’. His passion for education – an education that refuses to accept limits in what young people and their teachers are capable of – is matched by his genuine zeal for educational leadership, which he describes as ‘the best job in the world.'

Vickie Allen

Web Developer

Vickie founded SyncDevelopHER – a networking group for women in tech – in 2013 and is passionate about making sure that we inspire the next generation of girls to learn to code as she believes that it will be an essential skill of the future. She runs a Code Club for 12-18 year olds on Saturdays, as well as working as a Web Developer for a local company.