Keynote Speakers
David Wells
David’s teaching career began in 1985. At St John Houghton School in Ilkeston and was promoted as Head of Upper School, often working with the 14-16 year-olds who felt most demotivated.
In 1990 David gained an M(Phil) degree from Nottingham University focusing on Effective Methods of Teacher In-service Training. The following years he worked in London for the Catholic Education Service providing in-service training opportunities for staff in Catholic schools.
In 1997, he represented the Bishop’s Conference at a meeting in Jacksonville, Florida. This led to other invitations and since then David has spoken at more than 500 conferences worldwide. In 2000 he scripted and presented the video series “You, Your Children and Their Catholic Faith” which sold widely throughout the English speaking Church.
Owen Eastwood
Owen Eastwood is a Performance Coach engaged by high performing organisations to develop a competitive advantage in their leadership and team culture. Owen has worked with the England football team and the British Olympic team. His previous diverse experience around the world includes the Command Group of NATO, professional ballet, corporate leadership teams and the South African cricket team.
Seminar/Workshop Leads
Bethany Friery
Beth Friery is the Primary Team Leader in CAFOD’s Education Team. She has been delivering CPD for CAFOD in locations across England and Wales for five years, inspiring teachers and their pupils to work for global justice and to act in solidarity for the common good. Before working at CAFOD, Beth was a primary teacher, RE Coordinator, and lay chaplain, with specialisms in Early Years education, and music. With Catholic Social Teaching at the heart of CAFOD’s work, Beth works with schools, dioceses, MATs and Senior Leadership Conferences to embed Catholic Social Teaching within the Catholic life and mission of the school.
Emma Kinghorn
Emma started her career as a Primary School Teacher and later worked as part of a lottery-funded project which supported the emotional wellbeing of children and young people across the city of Wolverhampton. Emma has a wealth of experience in planning bespoke content and delivering in-class workshops.
Now at Squirrel Learning, Emma supports Computing Coordinators in their role; leads professional development; provides EdTech support to teachers and delivers in-class computing projects in a variety of educational settings.
Emma has a passion for using technology in all aspects of her role and has a specific interest in Art and Design; STEM; Digital Wellbeing and Online Safety.
Father Benedict Skipper
Coming soon.
Jodie Richards
Jodie is the Development and Safeguarding Service Lead at S4S. She has worked in education for many years, delivering a variety of training to Governors, school staff and senior leaders. Conflict and complaint resolution is key within all school settings,her session will focus on helping staff members to effectively resolve conflict in schools and deescalate concerns prior to an official complaint. The session will also give an overview of the MACs Complaints procedure.
Lee Ashton
Lee has been passionate about using technology since his early days as a primary school teacher and leader. He went on to be a lead teacher of ICT and mobile learning before moving to work with the local authority to work directly with other schools.
Along with Emma, Lee currently works at Squirrel Learning providing schools with a range of support including, developing their computing curriculum, providing CPD to staff, delivering in class computing projects and supporting senior leaders in implementing whole school strategies.
Lee's passions include using technology to enhance subjects with a practical focus including; Science, PE, Geography and learning in the outdoors.
Rachel Higginson
Rachel is passionate about facilitating professional conversations and supporting education evolution. She is a creative consultant, keynote speaker and has been in education for 25 years. She is the Primary Adviser for Uffculme Academy Trust, a collaborator for Myatt & Co, has written DFE approved curriculum for a South West free school, and is the Education Consultant for the children’s publisher, Redan. Rachel designed the ‘Finding my Voice’ project based in Devon. This supports young people to physically and metaphorically ‘find their voice’. She recently collaborated with John Tomsett and Mary Myatt on curating the content for Primary Huh including her own chapter in Primary Huh 2, ‘A conscious and creative curriculum.’
Davoud Davies
Having been an energy consultant for over 15 years, Davoud has supported organisations across a range of sectors, including many MACs/MATs, colleges, and universities. Davoud has significant expertise in advising education clients on the identification and delivery of energy, carbon, and cost reduction projects, plus the development of robust heat decarbonisation plans, and Net Zero strategies. Davoud is therefore well placed to provide independent advice to assist the various SFSCMAC schools in driving down their energy consumption, carbon emissions, and running costs.
Dr Andrew Curran
Andrew was born in Northern Ireland, a child of the Troubles but hidden away in the middle of the countryside able to watch Belfast burning from the top of our coal bunker. It was later as a doctor working in Belfast and in Derry that he experienced the cold, brutal, blood stained violence of terrorism. Music, writing, the commitments in his life and love arose from those combined experiences. Enjoy.
He is a paediatric neurologist working in the UK. Andrew works in the NHS and also does medico legal work. He presents nationally and internationally on how the brain learns. Central to his life is his desire to create through music, wiring, photography and with the simple acts that create a life.
Jo Boyce
One of the founding directors of cjm, Jo’s background as a biochemist makes her the analytical mind of the team (some would say mad scientist!) As well as all her musical cjm responsibilities, Jo plans and coordinates much of the face-to-face work delivered by the team and works undercover as the cjm webmaster.
Gavin Clowes
Gavin Clowes has worked in education for thirty three years. During that time he has been an outstanding teacher, mentor, Senior Leader and staff trainer with Cheshire County Council in the North West of England. For the past twenty years Gavin has been training and facilitating staff development in Kagan Cooperative Learning Structures both as a ‘Certified International Kagan Trainer and as Director of KaganUK. Whilst working as a Kagan trainer Gavin has had the privilege to work with educators and students in over twenty countries including the UK, USA, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Spain, Denmark, Norway, Germany and Belgium from Foundation Stage to University. Gavin is also a Kagan Win-Win Discipline trainer and as such enjoys the challenge of supporting colleagues who have the daily task of working with ‘difficult clients’. Having ‘lived’ Kagan Structures for over twenty years Gavin is well aware of the enormous difference Kagan Cooperative Learning Structures make to learning for Teachers and Students.
Matt Isherwood
Formerly the Director of Estates for a leading Academy Trust, Matt brings to Barker over a decade of ‘client-side’ experience in educational property management and capital project delivery. Working with staff and colleagues across the Trust from the “C-Suite” level to the operational Facility Management teams he developed and established a variety of strategic and tactical approaches to support the Trust portfolio of schools to provide property assurance, capital works programmes and business resilience. Most recently leading the Trusts response to the “Environmental Sustainability & Energy Efficiency” challenge, a challenge that was put into sharp relief with the escalation of the energy prices. Today Matt will share with you his first-hand journey to put in place tactics to reduce energy consumption, reduce green house gas emissions and measures to reduce the risk of future energy price inflation..
Brendan Thompson
Brenden Alejandro Thompson studied Youth Ministry and theology at St Mary’s, Twickenham before going on to do a Masters in Applied Theology at Oxford University. Brenden is currently the CEO of Catholic Voices, Evangelisation & Outreach Advisor for the Archdiocese of Southwark and a Trustee of the Bible Society. Having made multiple appearances on TV & Radio including on the BBC, Sky News & Al Jezeera , Brenden also speaks to thousands of people every year about the Gospel with joy and enthusiasm and trains others in how to share the Christian faith with charity and clarity.
Peter Smallwood
Pete is the human formation co-ordinator and tutor at Oscott College seminary in Birmingham. He is a person-centred counsellor, accredited and registered with the British Association for Counsellors and Psychotherapists. He is also a co-founder of the JP2 Network & Directory which supports Catholic clergy through counselling and pastoral accompaniment.