Educator · Speaker · TV Personality · Author
That’s the phrase that’s stayed with me through every school I’ve worked in, every teacher I’ve sat with, every young person I’ve watched figure something out about themselves they didn’t know before. Hope is a responsibility. And I’ve built everything I do around that belief.
(01) — The story
I didn’t set out to become a keynote speaker. I set out to be the kind of teacher I wished I’d had. The kind who made you feel like the room was built for you even when, especially when, it wasn’t.
Over the last 20+ years I’ve worked across hundreds of schools; mainstream, independent, SEND-resourced, colleges, NEET provision, universities. Every setting different. Every student different. And through all of it, one belief stayed constant: potential is everywhere. Opportunity is not.
Along the way I became a trainer of trainee teachers helping 100+ educators into the profession through the TES Institute. I became a critical friend on Cyber Explorers, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology’s national digital literacy programme.
And then, in 2014, something rather unexpected happened on television.
Gogglebox gave me reach I couldn't have engineered. But it's a platform not an identity. My identity is educator. Everything else sits in service of that.
(02) — The television bit
Being part of a BAFTA-winning Channel 4 show meant that when I walked into a school to deliver a keynote, half the room already trusted me before I’d said a word. That matters. But it’s a platform not an identity. My identity is educator. Everything else sits in service of that.
(03) — The framework
Year after year, working in school after school, I kept seeing the same gap: young people with enormous potential and very little language for it. They were intelligent but lacked the framework to understand their own strengths and the confidence to act on them.
So I built one. Curiosity. Creativity. Collaboration. Compromise. Communication. Courage. Community. Seven conditions under which people, young and old, genuinely flourish. Seven things I’ve watched make the difference, in room after room, year after year.
(04) — The credentials
20+ years across every type of school, every year group, every community means I understand the full ecosystem. And I bring strategies and stories that resonate wherever you sit within it.
(05) — Work together
Drop me a line. Tell me about your audience, your event, and what you’re hoping they take away. I’ll come back to you within 48 hours.
