Digital Live: Evolving Education

Profile to follow...

Mark Bashforth has over 14 years' experience of working in an FE college, starting out as a Lecturer in Computing while working in an OFSTED Grade 1 department, teaching a range of IT/ Computing subjects, and leading several courses. Mark has also taken an active lead in other extracurricular activities including setting up and teaching code club sessions and children’s university sessions. Mark was then promoted in 2017 to Curriculum Development Manager for Digital Industries within the FE College.

Mark joined Pearson in 2019 as Curriculum Development Manager for the North of England.

Mark has experienced other successes during his career, including becoming an ‘Advanced ICT Toolkit Author’ for the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT) The role included:

• the preparation and delivery of Toolkit 9 (Creating educational games using Adventurer Maker Software)
• the preparation and delivery of a one-day Web 2.0 conference. During the four-hour session delegates investigated podcasts, G-casts, wikis, blogs, social networking sites and a plethora of subject-related web 2.0 sites

Mark has also attended several awards ceremonies at Citigroup's London headquarters and received several awards from the SSAT for the development of teaching resources.

Matt works as a team leader for the Blended Learning Consortium and an Advance Quality Practitioner for Digital Skills at the Heart of Worcestershire College. He supports staff and students at the college but also externally under the EdTech Demonstrator Programme.

Shamim-Ara Begum is a Learning Technologies Coach at Birmingham Metropolitan College.

She is passionate about the use of digital technology to enhance teaching and learning and has many years' experience teaching adults.

Shamim-Ara always combines the two, which means there is never a dull moment in her lessons!

Tim Brady has a wide range of experience, from industry to computing. He worked as a memory chip designer in the semiconductor industry for 20 years, and then turned his hand to a decade of teaching ICT and Computer Science in a large comprehensive.

More recently, Tim has been using his expertise to support teachers delivering Pearson Edexcel Computer Science and IT qualifications.

Michael Brooks is the Deputy Headteacher, Year 6 Teacher and Maths Subject lead at St John Fisher Catholic Primary school in Knowsley Village, Knowsley. Michael is also currently a governor for a local one-form-entry Primary School.

He has been teaching for 13 years and has worked in four very different Knowsley schools, teaching across KS2 predominantly but also lucky to teach Year 2 for two years, in his own words, this being probably his favourite year to teach.

Michael's previous roles have involved being English subject lead, Curriculum Lead, Computing Lead, TA Line manager and EYFS and KS1 Lead.

Profile to follow...

Lucy Chowns has worked in educational publishing for 14 years, specialising in digital assessment for the last six years.

She currently leads on Pearson’s strategy for classroom assessment services in UK Schools.

Jenny Dunne is the Executive Director of Learning at the New Bridge MAT. She has 20 years’ experience of working with children and young people in both mainstream primary schools and Special Educational Needs schools.

Jenny currently leads on the development of curriculum and assessment systems within the MAT to ensure the whole curriculum is purposeful for each individual learner and that we can capture the progress that they make, not only in academic areas but also holistic areas of their development.

Alongside this, Jenny leads on the 1:1 iPad strategy across the MAT and is passionate about technology complementing and enhancing teaching and learning both academically and in developing purposeful life skills.

Jenny is passionate about ensuring all children and young people access a broad, balanced yet personalised curriculum offer. She believes that there should be no barriers to learning that can not be broken down to ensure each learner reaches their potential destination to play a meaningful part in the community in which they live.

Profile to follow...

Donna Ford-Clarke is Product Director for BTECs and Apprenticeships at Pearson.

In this role, Donna leads on identifying, developing and launching new qualifications, digital learning solutions and teaching and learning support services for the BTEC portfolio.

Profile to follow...

Carly Graham is a member of SLT, Curriculum Lead, PE Lead and Year 4 teacher at St John Fisher Catholic Primary School in Knowsley Village.

Carly has been teaching for 12 years and has worked in three different schools within the Knowsley Borough. Throughout her career, she has taught in both key stages but predominantly in KS1.

In a previous school, her role as a middle leader included having responsibility for phonics and spelling and she has also had the opportunity to work with Erasmus+, allowing Carly to both teach and observe teaching in Namibia and Madrid.

Profile to follow...

Following a career in the Automotive Design industry, Mark Heslop taught Mathematics for 15 years before joining Pearson in January 2020.

He was a member of the Department for Education’s A level Content Advisory Board tasked with updating the A level Mathematics and Further Mathematics courses.

Having taught through the pandemic, Mark is keen to share best practice to make the extra burden of remote teaching more manageable for teachers and more effective for students.

Les Hopper has over 15 years’ experience working with educators, technologists and academics to produce market-leading learning solutions.

He is passionate about the power of education to change lives, and the potential that technology offers to support a high-quality education.

Les currently works as Director of Digital and Assessment for Pearson UK Schools.

James Jackson, soon to be Director of Digital Transformation at the Shaw Academy Trust. Previously he was Head of Systems and Planning at Bishop Grosseteste University. He has been teaching for 16 years, previously a Curriculum Manager for Computing and Games, and has been a trainer for Pearson for 9 years. He loves being able to give back to teachers and give them interesting ways to use technology to deliver their lessons.

Matt Jones is Technology for Learning Lead at Blackpool Sixth and tutor of Drama, Performing Arts and Media. 

He has experience in coordinating BYOD schemes and 'paperless' teaching, and great enthusiasm for quality digital resources and new forms of learning and assessment.

Sanooba Muneer is an Engineering Lecturer, and has worked at Basingstoke College of Technology for the past five years.

She is a certified Google Educator and Adobe Creative Educator, and has worked in Higher and Further education for 11 years.

Sanooba has also designed an online Soldering Course for an Electronics Company.

Lindsay Nadin is Director of Primary Learning Services and Direct to Learner, within Pearson’s UK Schools business.

Lindsay has 18 years’ experience developing educational solutions for Primary and Secondary learners, their teachers and their parents.

With her specialism in Primary reading, Lindsay was instrumental in developing Pearson’s ground-breaking online reading programme, Bug Club, and also led the team behind the DfE-accredited maths programme, Power Maths.

To support Pearson’s mission of helping people make progress in their lives through learning, Lindsay and her team are committed to leveraging the power of technology and innovation to enhance education.

Profile to follow...

Stephen Sadler’s career began at a London Design Consultancy before moving into the field of exhibition design, international sales, marketing and product development.

In early 2002 Stephen moved away from the Events Industry to Education, applied for a temporary post at his former Secondary School, East Barnet School (EBS), with a view to going back into the City, but almost 19 years later he is still there.

Stephen is Head of Digital Learning, Creativity and Innovation at EBS and his subject specialism is Robotics and Design and Technology. During his time at EBS, Stephen has had the sole responsibility of developing the CAD CAM for staff and students in the school. He also introduced Autodesk software and its mobile applications into the EBS Design and Technology curriculum.

Stephen was the first to introduce a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) to a UK Secondary School and he is the schools Head of Digital Learning, Creativity and Innovation. He has pioneered within the field of EdTech and in 2011 introduced Robotics and STEM education to the wider Technology Curriculum, resulting in a dramatic increase in students now wanting to learn about Robotics, Design & Engineering.

Stephen is an honorary member of the Robotics Education & Competition (REC) Foundation STEM Hall of Fame. He has also received numerous awards, including Digital Design and Technology Teacher of the Year, VEX Robotics Teacher of the Year and he is VEX World Mentor of the Year.

He has also set up the first all-girls Robotics Teams, who have competed both nationally and internationally as well as host training and CPD events of their own as students for teachers across London.

Stephen has inspired, motivated, taught and assisted in so many ways. He has made an outstanding contribution to Design and Technology at East Barnet School and has since gone on to set up and share his best practice through Primary School Initiatives, demonstrations to Teachers across the UK and more.

Rachel Stovold is a Programme Manager at the Peter Jones Foundation. She oversees the Tycoon Enterprise Competition and Alumni Programme.

Rachel’s background has focused on youth programmes: having previously led on the delivery of the National Citizen Service, a government-funded initiative that supports social action and social mixing among young people.

My name is Jada-Maya Modha from East Barnet School and I am a senior member and mentor of EBS Robotics. I am in now in Year 11 studying GCSEs.

My team name is known internationally as Girl Bots. Girl Bots have been competing professionally in Robotics competitions since I was in Year 7 (five years). This season I am currently competing with my Robot I have designed, engineered, built and programmed using the VEX Robotics engineering educational platform. I am the sole programmer, driver, designer and engineer of my Robot.

My aim is to win the UK VEX Robotics National Championships and then go on to represent the UK at the VEX World Championships, held in Louisville, Kentucky, USA.

One of my biggest achievements to date was giving a keynote presentation to 4,000+ executives at Autodesk OTX Copenhagen, Denmark in April 2018. 

One aspect of VEX Robotics that I really enjoy is mentoring the younger students, as I can pass on my knowledge. I can also link and map everything Mr Sadler teaches through EBS Robotics to my GCSE Engineering curriculum.

In most cases, I think I probably involve myself in more STEM at school through EBS Robotics extra-curricular activities than any other subject. I have learned so much since I started participating in Year 7. Robotics is my favorite subject at school.

I also represent Girls in STEM with my work in educational robotics and I hope to pursue a career in Design Engineering when I am older.