School leaders will be gathering on 10 and 11 November for NAHT’s
virtual Early Years and Primary Conferences to reflect on “the
bright side and the joy of education”.
The programmes for the two events will be focusing on some of the
educational positives that have emerged through the recent
testing times.
Each day’s programme includes keynote speakers and partners from
a range of settings across the country and external experts in
the field of early and primary education.
Speakers at the Early Years Conference on Wednesday (10
November), include:
- Gill Jones, HMI, Deputy Director Schools Early Education,
Ofsted
- Jan Dubiel, Executive Principal, Little Lions
- Professor Julie Fisher, independent Early Years Adviser and
Visiting Professor of Early Childhood Education at Oxford Brookes
University
- Rt Hon. Dame , DBE MP.
On Thursday (11 November), speakers at the Primary Conference
include:
- Will Hussey, award winning, best-selling author and keynote
speaker, who specialises in “making a difference”
- Shirley Clarke, a world expert in formative assessment,
specialising in the practical application of its principles
- Andrew Hammond, Senior Director at Learning and Community
Discovery Education
- Onjali Q. Rauf, best-selling author, human rights activist
and the founder of the NGO, Making Herstory.
Paul Whiteman, NAHT general secretary, said:
“School leaders and their teams have gone to incredible lengths
to protect and teach our children and young people in the most
challenging of times. It’s not surprising that morale has got
quite low at times for school leaders during the pandemic. An
NAHT survey found that the top words used to describe this time
are ‘challenging, exhausting and stressful’. Too many experienced
leaders are looking to leave and too few middle leaders aspire to
headship. We want to help our members find the joy in education
again, and I hope our Early Years and Primary Conferences help to
reaffirm that school leadership is still the most wonderful job
in the world.”
Chair of the Early Years Conference, NAHT past president,
and Yorkshire infants school head teacher, Judy Shaw
said: “Heads are typically extremely positive, and very
optimistic people. Before the pandemic, schools were feeling the
pressure from lack of investment. Despite all the additional
challenges that we have faced and had to overcome in the last
couple of years, there are many joys to being a headteacher.
Teaching is a wonderful job, and we must keep our positivity
about it for the sake of those aspiring to lead our schools in
the future.”
Chair of the Primary Conference and Birmingham head
teacher, Sarah Hewitt-Clarkson, said: “The title is ‘The
Joy of Education’ for good reason. We have had a shocker of a
time for the last two years and a pretty awful time before that.
We all came into the profession because of the joy that it is, it
was and should be. If we are not careful, we won’t just run out
of joy – we’ll run out of teachers and school leaders too.”
For more details and to view the schedule, visit: https://naht.org.uk/eyp
