LGfL Annual Conference
Seminar Sessions
Seminars held 11:00 to 11:30
Removing Digital Headaches - Purple Room
Ian Phillips, Senior Leaders Mentor
This session will explore international digital trends on continuing to develop a long-term Digital Strategy and is aimed at school leaders.
This is an interactive session to discuss the migration of ideas, tips and how to take advantage of the wealth of good practices on the use of technology in teaching and learning.
The resources for the session will be shared prior to the conference to enable more time for questions and discussion.
Digital Infrastructure - Build, Buy or Both - Blue Room
Richard Martin, Digital Transformation Network Lead at LGfL and Geoff Chandler
The session is aimed at senior leaders with financial and strategic responsibility as well as technical Leaders. We will explore the infrastructure and strategy needed to support your school and MAT’s digital vision, covering which parts you should own and locate on site and where services are best delivered from the cloud.
The session will consist of 3 parts:
An overview from Richard Martin (Former CIO at Ark schools) to cover key components and guidance on building yourself or buying externally.
A View from David Young ( Former MAT IT director) on his experiences in transforming IT at his trust.
Geoff Chandler on the relative costs, based on his experiences in providing consultancy to hundreds of schools and trusts around the UK.
A must for any school or MAT leader to who is considering a major investment in education technology or wants to review the existing systems.”
Live Well to Lead Well - Green Room
Kelly Hannaghan, Founder of MindWorkMatters
Kelly will explore ways to develop a healthy, resilient work culture in education where educators flourish, find the balance with tools to help manage wellbeing in the digital world and explore what works to create a thriving school community where every person matters. The outline of the session is as follows:
Reflect on staff resilience and recognise coping states
Understand how we think, feel and behave and how this impacts outcomes and others
Gain practical strategies to boost wellbeing, harness professional relationships and leverage potential
Develop wellbeing EdTech solutions for brighter futures in education
To develop self-awareness to reduce the symptoms of burnout
Safeguarding and SafeSkills - Orange Room
Farrah Khalifa, Head of Computer Science and LGfL's Safeguarding Team
SafeSkills is a free resource that helps children to build their understanding of the risks and challenges of using social media and the internet. Over 200,000 questions have been answered so far. Farrah Kahlifa, Head of Computer Science at St Paul's Catholic School in Leicester, will set out how SafeSkills has assisted her school to improve awareness of risk and safeguard children.
Ransomware and beyond the initial cyber attack - Pink Room
Bruce Thomson, Technical Lead for Information Security for London & Cyber Technical Advisory Group
Bruce will be looking at the recently reported (by the BBC) dark web-based ransomware group attacks on UK schools. Whilst touching upon how best to avoid them, the main focus of the session will be on why they do it, things to avoid after you may have been attacked and importantly what happens to your stolen data and the risks to your reputation and longer-term impacts.
Seminars held 11:35 to 12:05
Managing Change - Change is Hard - Blue Room
Olly Lewis, Head of Digital Transformation at the Thomas Deacon Education Trust.
Change is hard, there’s no two ways about it! What are the real issues around change and how do we overcome them? With so many potential changes, where should we focus our attention and why should we focus on those areas?
Governance and Growth - Preparing for 2030 - Orange Room
Al Kinglsey, CEO of Netsupport
With the government releasing plans for schools to move towards a fully trust-led system by 2030, creating ‘strong trusts’ for each local area and region has now become high on the agenda and brings new challenges to the sector. Published author of the best seller ‘My School Governance Handbook’, Al Kingsley, discusses how governance plays an integral part in this process and takes a deeper dive at how specifically school governors and trustees in a MAT can support its growth strategies, and on the other side, how to attract strong trusts to operate locally.
Using Technology to Create Authentic Learning Experiences in Computing - Purple Room
Bradley Dardis, Learning Resource Consultant for LGfL
In this presentation Bradley Dardis, one of LGfL’s Learning Resource Consultants, will bring to life the opportunities that technology can offer to increase learner engagement and deliver positive outcomes for children using LGfL's freely bundled resources.
Radicalisation – making the most of the DfE Prevent duty Tool - Green Room
Mubina Asaria, Online Safeguarding Consultant for LGfL
In this workshop Mubina Asaria, LGfL’s Online Safeguarding Consultant, will take you through the recently launched DfE Prevent Toolkit developed by LGfL; widely acclaimed by schools and MATs as a key resource for helping schools meet their Prevent requirements and needs.
Mubina is a nationally recognised figure and is widely involved in the shaping and development of policy in this area. She will bring a wealth of insights and practice advice to participants in the workshop.
Cyber Security in Education - Pink Room
Abid Patel, IT Director, Newham Community Learning
Do school leaders understand the very real and detrimental threat that we face around cyber-attacks? Why does cyber security matter? What is a cyber attack? What do you need to look out for? What are the risks? Where is your data stored? Is it secure? Is it backed up? What happens if my school is a victim of a cyber attack?
The dangers are scary enough to make headline news, but understanding cyber security and trying to protect yourself from a cyber attack can be very challenging in itself!
The session will aim to highlight the dangers and the sometimes uncomfortable changes schools need to address and make, to ensure that their vital systems and data are as secure as possible for an ever-evolving landscape.
Seminars held 12:10 to 12:40
Do we always need to sit to learn? - Green Room
Bryn Llewellyn, TagTiv8
Health and wellbeing of children are on the decline:
Physical activity levels are falling
Only 10% of children achieve the daily recommendations for physical activity
More children are leaving school classified as obese or overweight.
Traditional approaches towards improving health outcomes focus heavily upon sport & PE during segmented periods of the school day but does this engage all children in becoming more active? Or does it merely maintain the levels of those that are active already?
Research demonstrates that Physically Active Learning (PAL) can:
Improve classroom behaviour and activity engagement
Significantly reduce sedentary time
Offer improvement in academic performance over time.
Bryn will share research and practical ideas to help children move and learn.
Tomorrow’s World - Blue Room
Mark Anderson, Head of Education at NetSupport
If the pandemic taught us anything, technology, like education, is a force for good and is here to stay. Recent developments in technology such as the use of Generative AI in the classroom have shown us more than before how powerful technology can be at helping us in three key areas: enhancing learning, supporting teaching and, reducing workload. In this session Mark explores the importance of ensuring evidence-informed pedagogical practices are at the heart of your practice using technology in the classroom. As Mark shares, “It ain’t what you do it’s the way that you do it, and that’s what gets results” – so expect a focus on using frameworks that improve our technological knowledge (as a part of TPACK), the relevance of GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out - the computing framework that refers to the output you get from computer systems is only ever as good as what you put into that system), and an all-round ‘Pedagogy First’ (Fullan, 2013) approach to ensure success when it comes to making the most of technology for teaching and learning in the classroom.
EdTech Hub Spotlights - Insights from Digital Communities of Practice - Purple Room
Edtech Leaders
LGfL is a community that is about sharing and collaborating. In this workshop, LGfL and experienced school and MAT leaders will share progress and learning from the newly created EdTech Regional Hubs, jointly sponsored by LGfL and the EdTech Foundation. These developing Centres of Excellence are focused on harnessing technology effectively and advancing new models of pedagogy that support that ambition.
Getting it Right – improving our response to child neglect - Orange Room
Alex Dave, Safeguarding Education Officer at LGfL
Neglect affects 10% of all children and is one of the most challenging areas of safeguarding practice to effectively respond to. During this workshop, Alex Dave, LGfL’s Safeguarding Education Officer, will explore some key concepts associated with identifying and responding to neglect. Delegates will then hear about three key areas for improving schools' response to neglect – including some information about strengthening record keeping and referrals to Children’s Services.
LGfL's Next Generation Network Revolution - Pink Room
Steve Dunwoody, Network Architect at LGfL
Steve Dunwoody, LGfL’s Chief Engineer, sets out the history of LGfL’s opportunity and the incredible opportunities emerging with next-generation networking and what they offer schools and Multi Academy Trusts.
Seminars held 13:30 to 14:00
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of AI - Blue Room
Tom Thacker, Chief Education Officer of CENTURY Tech
This session will look at the most recent developments in AI, how it is deployed effectively in the classroom, the advantages to teaching and learning as well as what to watch out for as technology rapidly advances.
Celebrating and Learning From the Co-op's New Google Serverless School, Belle Vue - Orange Room
Jim Fessey, Head of IT at Co-op Academies Trust
This presentation celebrates our new Google Serverless School - Co-op Academy Belle Vue. Jim will discuss the key steps on that journey, learning to date and how this shapes their future approach.
Let's Assemble The Next Generation of LGfL - How we are redesigning LGfL to enable better educational outcomes - Purple Room
John Jackson, CEO of LGfL
LGfL was founded 20 years ago as a commissioner for broadband in London. Today, in this presentation, the CEO of LGfL sets out his vision for the continuing metamorphosis of LGfL into a national engine of digital innovation and transformation within education of global significance. LGfL is imagining the impossible, then planning to deliver it.
#TechSkillsCrisis #CreativityCrisis - what to do? - Green Room
Nick Corston, Founder of STEAM Co.
Come and tell us what you think, what you're doing and what needs to be done. We want best practice, creative solutions and to know who, where, and what the blocks are to our kids' futures.
Everyone who attends will get ten entries in our #Road4ToBETT23 draw to win JD, an incredible AI robot designed to inspire all our kids to love him, and coding.
We'll be filming and live streaming this from a stage on top of #OurSeeMonster - a cardboard North Sea rig outside Liverpool Street Station and producing an action plan.
Yes, creativity, cardboard and code can take us anywhere.
Find Your Security Weakspots & Tighten Your Defence with LGfL - Pink Room
Gareth Jelley, Product Security Manager at LGfL
In the workshop. Gareth Jelley, LGfL’s Product Security Manager, will set out how LGfL can help your school or MAT to identify security vulnerabilities, provide options and tools to remediate those threats as well as provide policies and support to keep your school secure in an increasingly hostile digital world.
Seminars held 14:05 to 14:35
How Digital Integration Partnerships Support Sustainable Digital Strategy Both In and Beyond the Classroom - Orange Room
Daren White, Academies Technologies Lead
Join Daren to explore how Digital Integration Partnerships are helping to support the sustainable development of digital strategy at scale, both in and beyond the classroom.
How can you make a Digital Strategy Work in an economically deprived Climate - Purple Room
Emma Darcy, Director of Technology for Learning
In this session, Emma will explain how a school and MAT in an extremely socio-economically deprived area overcame challenges of budget, infrastructure, and staff/stakeholder engagement to develop a fully inclusive digital strategy, including a 1:1 device scheme. Denbigh High School in Luton and Chiltern Learning Trust have been on a ten year journey and the session will provide lots of practical examples of low cost/ no cost solutions that have been introduced at both a MAT and school level, cross-referenced to evidence of impact. The session is suitable for anyone who has big digital aspirations, but who doesn’t have the budget to match!
Maximising the Use of LGfL Learning Resources, Inclusion Support and Training in Your Primary School - Blue Room
Laura Smith, Learning Resource Consultant for LGfL
LGfL provides a huge array of award-winning resources, content and training for FREE to all schools. In this workshop Laura Smith, one of LGfL’s Learning and Resource Consultants, will take you on a journey through this content as well as provide an important update on key resources such as J2E and Busy Things.
#TechSkillsCrisis #CreativityCrisis - what to do? - Green Room
Nick Corston, Founder of STEAM Co.
Come and tell us what you think, what you're doing and what needs to be done. We want best practice, creative solutions and to know who, where, and what the blocks are to our kids' futures.
Everyone who attends will get ten entries in our #Road4ToBETT23 draw to win JD, an incredible AI robot designed to inspire all our kids to love him, and coding.
We'll be filming and live streaming this from a stage on top of #OurSeeMonster - a cardboard North Sea rig outside Liverpool Street Station and producing an action plan.
Yes, creativity, cardboard and code can take us anywhere.
CISCO Meraki - Best Practices - Pink Room
Paul Fidler
This workshop will help schools and MATs harness the power of Meraki MDM to improve security and manage digital services effectively as well as offer insights on advanced practices and techniques from Paul Fidler, one of CISCO’s leading practitioners and product evangelists.