Mark has worked in education for most of his career, firstly as a History teacher in the UK and then teaching English around the world. He has been with the British Council for 25 years and has worked in Spain, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Romania, Portugal, Korea, Singapore and Argentina. He has held a number of roles including teacher trainer, Country Director, Global Head of Teaching and most recently Regional Director for the Americas. Mark is a life-long learner and has a degree in Politics and International Relations, a Postgraduate Certificate in Education, a Diploma in Teaching English as a Foreign Language, a Post Graduate Diploma in Management and an MA in Marketing. In 2019 he returned to Spain as Director of the British Council, having begun his British Council career teaching in Barcelona.

Deputy Head of Mission, British Embassy, Madrid

From August 2021 Sarah has been Deputy Head of Mission at the British Embassy Madrid responsible for the overall management of the Embassy with particular focus on Political, Economic and Communications issues.   Sarah has worked in various positions for the FCDO in London and overseas including in Prague, Afghanistan and Pakistan.  Most recently she was in charge of the UK’s Prosperity Fund and international aid projects for the FCDO and between 2013-2017 she was the British Ambassador to Latvia.  She has worked for the European External Action Service and also in the private sector before joining the FCDO.

Rosa María Prieto Gallego is the Senior Advisor to the International Education Unit at the Spanish Ministry of Education and Vocational Training, where she has worked since 2014. Prior to this, she held the role of Education Advisor at the Spanish Education Office in Australia, developing several cooperation programmes with local Departments of Education to extend the presence of Spanish language and culture in the country.Previously she had held the position as Education Advisor at the Ministry for Education on Latin American education affairs and relations with the European Union.

As Head of the Unit for Teachers’ Mobility she has coordinated various programmes, including those for visiting teachers in the US, Canada,Ireland, Germany and China; Spanish bilingual programmes in Eastern Europe; and training programs for teachers of Spanish as a Foreign Language in cooperation with Spanish Universities and the Cervantes Institute. She also oversees the delivery of the language assistant programme in which Spanish language assistants are sent to 18 countries. Rosa is an English teacher who has taught English and Spanish at school and university levels (US, Wales and Spain). On a parallel note, she has published academic articles in the field of applied linguistics and is the author of a series of textbooks for the teaching of English for Spanish speakers for Secondary Education.

Svetlana Velikanova is the co-founder and Group CEO of Harbour Space University and has spoken about the importance of education at major events and conferences around the world.

“Being raised in a low-income household by a single mother who was a teacher, I value education greatly. But I dropped out of high school twice to earn money, thinking that school could wait until finance was no longer an issue. At my first real job, a senior mentor encouraged me to learn English and pursue higher education at the first opportunity. When I did, all my dreams started to come true. However, I never stopped thinking about other young people, who like me face a tough choice between earning vs learning. When my career in investment banking came to a zenith, I set a new goal to connect with passionate learners everywhere to make their dreams a reality through a world-class higher education that we build together.”

Education is a world of very special people but you will meet few as extra special as Nina ‘Ninja’ Jackson. Her work in the area of mental health and well-being has had an overwhelming impact on children, teachers and parents alike. She has rescued many who were on the brink of despair and given teachers the motivation to carry on when they nearly walked away from their careers. With a background in mainstream and special needs education and many years’ experiences in schools as a pedagogical and pastoral champion, Nina has a breath-taking grasp of what makes classrooms – and all the people in them – tick.

Mark Davis is Director of Blue Apple Education, the leading school communication and design experts. Mark has developed trusted relationships with many 100s of schools and colleges across the globe, offering exceptional design and communications that resonate with prospective and existing families, staff and communities.

Mark is an accomplished and engaging presenter, with years of experience in the education sector who is committed to supporting the development of effective school marketing. Mark hosts regular online masterclass sessions which are free to access and provide invaluable help and advice to schools. He is also the official Marketing & Communications expert on the MATA Advisory Board in the UK and has hosted over 40 episodes of the video blog “Out of The Blue”, all designed to provide free support and to help develop effective marketing throughout the sector.

Professor Amanda Kirby is an emeritus professor at the University of South Wales, an honorary professor at Cardiff University and alumni from Leeds University. She has lectured to more than 100,000 individuals worldwide, written over 100 research papers, and become internationally recognised in the field of neurodiversity as both a clinician and researcher and published 9 books in the field about Neurodiversity. Her passion is in ensuring that individuals in education and the workplace who are neurodivergent can maximise their talents while getting appropriate support. She is the CEO of doitprofiler.com, a trustee and chair of the ADHD Foundation and an advisor to the Dyspraxia Foundation.

Sonja Uhlmann is working for the British Council Spain as Child Protection Manager. Sonja’s main responsibility is to put in place corporate requirements in order to prevent and reduce the risk for children to suffer from any type of abuse including bullying. She has also to ensure compliance with Spanish and British Law concerning Child Protection and has to train the team about how to deal with an incident if it finally takes place. Finally, she is the point of contact in Spain with the Global Child Protection Team of the British Council and has to ensure that policies and procedures are implemented.

Psychologist, Master in Speech Therapy and Early Intervention she has worked for over 18 years with parents, teachers and children at the Down Syndrome Foundation in Madrid. Simultaneously she has been involved in several projects, research and training delivery related to Children’s Rights both nationally and internationally. She has also developed materials to promote children’s rights at schools and has extensive experience in delivering child protection trainings.

Formerly a psychology and health and social care teacher and lecturer, Ade Gachegua has worked for Pearson Education since 2015, where she is currently the Director of the Global Content Standards Strategy. As part of this role, she, alongside James Warwick, helped develop Pearson’s race and ethnicity publishing guidelines and has been instrumental in the drive to make all of the company’s editorial products more inclusive.

Ginnie has been a law enforcement officer for over twenty years. She has worked for HM Revenue and Customs, the Serious Organised Crime Agency and the National Crime Agency investigating fraud, tax evasion, drugs importation and child sexual abuse offences. She has also worked in Nigeria and Tanzania building the capacity of overseas partners to investigate child sexual abuse offences and respond to international police enquiries. She is now the Operations Manager for NCA International’s Transnational Child Sex Offenders team, and leads investigation and safeguarding specialists in working collaboratively with overseas partners to build an effective response to child sexual abuse offences.

Sophie has worked in education roles for the past 10 years. She gained experience working in schools, private tuition and the third sector before joining the National Crime Agency in 2018. She is now an Education Manager on the NCA’s CEOP Education Team leading on the development of resources to project children and young people from online sexual abuse. Sophie has spent the past four years dedicated to this work whilst also delivering training to professionals, supporting them to understand child sexual abuse and how to best prevent and respond to this threat.

As Chief Executive of Platinum Training and Consultancy, Eva leads a team of professionals in facilitating training and delivering qualifications for Early Years Practitioners and Teaching Assistants globally. With a background in primary teaching and early years, Eva is an advocate of learning through play, building confidence, motivation and curiosity and supporting professionals to be creative in their approach to get the very best outcomes for children. Eva is frequently invited to speak at conferences led by international school groups and enjoys working directly with schools to lead transformative change in the early years.

Stephanie is Senior External Moderator for Art and Design at UAL Awarding Body and an experienced teacher and leader in arts education as well as being a practitioner with a particular interest cultural democracy and the creative process. Stephanie has studied Art and Law, advises Qualifications Wales on the New Curriculum, is a scholar activist and has substantial experience in the design, planning, delivery and assessment of creative learning to students/participants in a variety of settings and age ranges (from 8 to 80 years old). Stephanie is strong advocate for creativity’s place in society, and believes that it is of huge benefit for individuals to foster and develop these attributes in themselves. Stephanie works with colleagues across the arts, cultural, heritage, craft and community development sectors in Wales.

Sofia Pileci is a Senior External Moderator for Creative Media at UAL Awarding Body and an experienced teacher and Head of Curriculum as well as working freelance in the Film and Television industry. As an academic, Sofia has authored and lead a number of creative arts programs, including the Further Education and Higher Education Film and Television programs at South Essex College and the National College of Creative Industries. Sofia has an MA in Feature Film and a Post-Graduate Certificate in Education. A strong advocate of integrating technical skills training with explorative learning, Sofia promotes a creative industry-focused approach to arts education.

Shona O’Callaghan is the founder and director of Empowering Creative Minds and leading educational consultant. As a fully qualified and experienced secondary teacher with a Master’s degree in Education focusing on multilingual learning in mainstream classrooms, she is a specialist in her field with over 15 years’ experience at school and university level. Certified by the British Dyslexia Association as a Dyslexia and Literacy specialist teacher with ATS status she excels in driving the awareness of learning challenges and helping students and teachers realise their true potential. Shona has a passion for helping teachers to support their dyslexic and neurodiverse learners throughout their education without increasing workloads. Focusing on areas such as self-esteem, motivation, effective communication and neuro linguistic programming, Shona endeavours to reinforce teachers’ classroom practice to become more confident while supporting their dyslexic learners in the mainstream classroom.

Having published research on comparative good practice for language methodologies implemented through private schools in Spain, Shona will commence a research PhD in Linguistics and Neuro Diversity with the University of Lancaster, in the coming months.

Wendy has worked for over twenty years in the classroom, as an English and Drama teacher, a head of department, a senior leader, and an Advanced Skills Teacher. She is passionate about providing newly qualified teachers with high-quality support and training, driven by her desire that all teachers make a difference in their classrooms and for their learners.

Wendy is at the forefront of the latest national testing developments in primary schools. She has also trained as an Ofsted Inspector and worked as a senior adviser for her local authority for many years. She delivers her training in an engaging and enthusiastic style, working extensively with senior leaders and teachers across the phases.

Haili Hughes is Head of Education at IRIS Connect and Senior Lecturer and Teacher Development Mentor Lead at the University of Sunderland. She is also a former English teacher, Head of Department and Senior Leader.

She has completed three Masters degrees and is now doing a Doctorate in Education. She is passionate about attracting English teachers into the profession and encouraging students to study English in FE and HE. In addition to delivering mentor CPD across the world, she also delivers workshops in schools across the UK, with the most able learners, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, to raise aspirations and train staff to ensure that they are challenging pupils and developing their pedagogy to meet their needs. In her spare time, she has written three education books and is currently writing the fourth and fifth for large education publishers, as well as writing for the TES and other publications.

Brian Oppenheim HMI is a former teacher and head of design and technology. He is a hugely experienced inspector, having worked as a lead inspector for Ofsted for over 29 years, as well as for other inspectorates offering BSO accreditation. He was heavily involved in formulating the current Ofsted framework and in training his colleagues to recognise outstanding practice. For ten years he was the Director of School Improvement for Cambridge Education, and he currently works for ICP Education.

Penny Holden, a highly experienced school inspector, school leader, and local authority lead for schools has been involved directly in several international school improvement projects and is familiar with a wide variety of inspectorates. She has held leadership positions in inspection services, including Ofsted and running her own inspection company and has extensive experience in setting up and running quality assurance processes and practice. She has worked extensively oversea, including in the US and has led many projects to improve teaching and learning and the leadership of schools in the UK and internationally, delivering training to teachers and principals on improving pedagogy and judging the quality of teaching and learning.

Matt Butler is an adventure guide, educator, writer, and charity founder.  He´s passionate about personal development and optimizing human potential – particularly with organizations and schools.  Canadian by origin and based in Spain, Matt draws on a lifetime of adventure experiences and life lessons to curate his insightful seminars and workshops.  His passion for surfing, climbing, storytelling and song writing has driven his own self-optimization program for many years.

Matt´s work related to mindfulness, stress reduction and growth mindsets is of increasing value to many organizations worldwide.  Participants benefit from the simplicity of Matt´s approach and the many tools they acquire for their own use. With degrees in Human Geography (B.A) and Education (B.Ed), Matt´s also a trained NLP, CBT & Hypnotherapy practitioner – working as a Mindset Coach delivering eco-therapy programs to adults and teens around the world for decades.  When not leading seminars for his brand BaseCamp, Matt facilitates worldwide adventure expeditions, charity challenges and school excursions for Adventurebug, his eco-tourism company.

Victoria has over 25 years’ experience in teaching, management, training and educational consultancy, and is well placed to support schools and empower teachers to deliver excellence in teaching. She has taught the entire primary age-range and has trained teachers in over 100 schools in primary, secondary, state and independent sectors.
Victoria has been a head teacher at three leading Independent UK schools, most recently Bedales, with a proven track record in creating outstanding learning environments for children and a culture of high performance among staff. She is passionate about improving teaching and learning to ensure the best possible outcome for learners.

Borja is Human Resources Manager at the British Council School Madrid. With 15 years’ experience in HR and labour relations, he has also been an EFL teacher and holds secondary teaching qualifications in humanities. Safer Recruitment is currently an integral part of his portfolio and he works closely with the British Council Child Protection team to ensure the school is a centre of reference for best practices and that policies and procedures are implemented in accordance to statutory requirements, both in Spain and the UK.

Bernard Fawcett is the International Manager for GL Assessment. After a career in control engineering Bernard became a teacher of Technology going on to lead a department and work as a Director of eLearning. During that time he also had responsibility for implementing a new management information system and using data more effectively. He has also worked as an examiner and moderator for a number of awarding bodies and worked with Pearson helping schools to design their curriculum to get the most from their BTEC qualifications.

This session will look at the collaborative approach to planning and risk-assessing educational visits. We will focus on the practical and not the paperwork to ensure staff are planning effectively without letting bureaucracy get in the way.

Author of three widely selling books, Claire is an internationally renowned consultant, trainer and keynote speaker with more than 25 years of experience in education. She has worked with hundreds of schools around the world to raise achievement and recently gave the keynote at the BSME conference in Dubai. Claire regularly coaches teachers in the classroom to demonstrate her innovative pedagogies and approaches to assessment. A leading expert on formative assessment, time-efficient feedback and learning environments, Claire strives to improve outcomes for all learners and to help teachers to work smarter not harder. When she is not working with teachers, Claire is busy delivering her signature ‘Radical Revision’ Programme directly to students and their parents.

Leticia Pontes is Kognity’s Senior Account Executive responsible for international schools in Iberia. She is fascinated by how education is evolving and how we, as adults, can guide children to become world citizens in a high-technological society.

Wendy has worked for over twenty years in the classroom, as an English and Drama teacher, a head of department, a senior leader, and an Advanced Skills Teacher. She is passionate about providing newly qualified teachers with high-quality support and training, driven by her desire that all teachers make a difference in their classrooms and for their learners.
Wendy is at the forefront of the latest national testing developments in primary schools. She has also trained as an Ofsted Inspector and worked as a senior adviser for her local authority for many years. She delivers her training in an engaging and enthusiastic style, working extensively with senior leaders and teachers across the phases.