Speakers Corner

Since 2007, ICT for Education has had a great variety of speakers at its conferences from all educational sectors within the UK. Our alumni of speakers are listed below. Thanks to all of them for their contributions to our conferences to date and hopefully in years to come.

If you would like to speak at an ICT for Education conference, please contact Sarah Underwood.

Patrick McGrath

Texthelp

Patrick is the resident EdTech champion at Texthelp. A passionate educator, Patrick is an accomplished international speaker focusing on engaging sessions on how technology can make a real and meaningful impact on teaching and learning for all. An Apple Education Mentor and Google Certified Educator, Patrick received the UK Digital Leader 100 award in 2016 and is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Ulster (School of Education). He’s worked with thousands of schools on areas such as literacy, inclusion, educational vision and planning, leadership, and change management.

Paul Ducklin

Paul Ducklin has been many things at Sophos: programmer, malware analyst, technical supporter, public speaker, security evangelist, and now proselytiser. (That's like an evangelist, but more so.)

These days, Paul spends most of his time writing for Sophos's award-winning community website, Naked Security, where he has built up a global reputation as the go-to guy for explaining even the most technical issues in plain language.

Simon Finch

Northern Grid / (eSafety Officer)

Presenter and guide on elearning, esafety, safeguarding, IPR and themes relating to technology and learning.
Over 20 years experience in leading workshops and training sessions for adults and young people in the UK and other countries.
Keynote, conference and exhibition speaker for Becta, Regional Broadband Consortia, universities, LSCBs, local authorities, schools and public services and charities.

2013 NAACE Impact Award winner for leadership 'for his commitment to ensuring a safe and supportive learning environment for the education sector.’

Simon Howe

Head of ICT at Ashton on Mersey school

Simon Howe is head of ICT at Ashton on Mersey school, where he leads and delivers the Computer science and ICT curriculum from Key Stage 3 to Key stage 5. In addition, Simon is a Google Qualified individual, Raspberry Pi educator, CAS master teacher and SLE, who prides himself on developing innovative ways to deliver the Computer Science curriculum across all key stages.

Prior to becoming a teacher, Simon was a backend web developer, focusing on database driven websites. Simon firmly believes the best way to educate pupils and build resilience is through real world experiences and physical computing to motivate and engage pupils in both the classroom and at home.

Steve Bunce

independent education consultant

Steve is an inspirational and experienced teacher. He has taught in primary, middle and secondary schools and covered many roles including ICT coordinator, head of year and senior leader. For the Open University, he has advised schools across the UK on their use of technology.

Developing teaching and learning in schools is the focus of Steve's work and he now advises teachers on using iPads to make an impact on learning. As a part-time lecturer at Durham University, he shares his experiences with undergraduate teachers. To develop enquiry in the classroom, Steve uses video games, programming and robots to enthuse his students.

Will Franklin

Westdene Primary School

The three tasks cited as causing the most unnecessary workload in the 2016 Teacher Workload Survey were data collection (56%), marking (53%) and planning and preparation (38%). So why not use technology to make data collection automated, marking automated, and preparation a one-off task? Drawing on his experience of teaching in KS1 and KS2, Will is here to demonstrate some of the simplest and most effective services available to assess pupil knowledge that teachers can use with minimal admin and on a tight budget.

Will is a full-time class teacher and computing coordinator at Westdene Primary. He has taught in Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 and been subject manager for computing for six years. He also works as a Computing at School's Master Teacher, helping other schools to develop their computing curriculum.