SWPS

Confirmed Speakers

• Caroline Ingram MBE
  CAROLINE INGRAM MBE A SWPS parent and trustee of the Victoria Climbie Charitable Trust, will talk about Every Child Matters and her involvement in the Climbie case, and creating a positive response to it. Victoria Climbie was sent to the UK to get an education she couldn’t access in the Ivory Coast, but died at the abusive and criminally neglectful hands of her great aunt who was meant to be taking care of her.
• Lizzie Overton
  Over a career in education spanning 25 years Lizzie has worked in a diverse range of primary schools that cover the socio-economic and cultural diversity of the UK. For the last 5 years she was Headteacher of Lewes New School in East Sussex, a ground-breaking school formed by parents, where she led a team of teachers to develop dynamic teaching practice led by the collective curiosity and imagination of the group. Through ‘Enliven Education’ Lizzie now works with teachers who want to offer learning opportunities that will better equip students to thrive in the fast changing world of the 21st Century. Central to her thinking is the idea that learning is at its most engaging and effective when it is placed in the context of the real world, where students have real opportunities to experience the power of collaboration and where real dialogue between enlivened minds is used to fuel the learning process. Lizzie will be talking about learning for a sustainable future.
• Sarah Pickthall
  Sarah trained in Drama and Education at Exeter University and studied Kabuki Theatre at Kokuritsu Gekijo, Tokyo in Japan. In a career spanning live performance and children’s television, she has specialised for over twenty years in working with disabled artists and individuals, most recently playing a key role in profiling and developing the Cultural Olympiad as part the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Her own artistic practice continues with her groundbreaking cross-media work LOYAL ENEMY, exploring the life of her great great uncle Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall – who translated the Koran. Making our best personal.
• David Thomas
  David Thomas had a difficult upbringing, getting in trouble with the police at 16 and expelled from school. He became a firefighter at the age of 20. At the age of 27, he bought a book on memory and found he had a gift. 8 months later he went to the World Memory Championships and came 4th. He has since gone on to develop one of the most powerful memories in history. He left the Fire Service in 1999 and is now a full time international professional speaker, having spoken in 22 countries to more than 250,000 people. He has had two books published, the second one going No.1 in the Sunday Times and one more than 500 media appearances including going on Oprah, the highest rated TV show in history. His memory achievements include breaking a Guinness record for reciting Pi to 22,500 digits and becoming 2007 US Memory Champion.
• Marina Cantacuzino
  Marina Cantacuzino is an award-winning journalist who in 2003, in response to the imminent invasion of Iraq, embarked on a personal project collecting stories in words and pictures of people who had lived through violence, tragedy or injustice and sought forgiveness rather than revenge. As a result Marina founded, The Forgiveness Project, a charitable organisation that uses story-telling to explore how ideas around forgiveness, reconciliation and conflict resolution can be used to impact positively on people´s lives, through the personal testimonies of both victims and perpetrators of crime and violence. Forgiveness – a moral mindfield.
• Paul Johnston
  Paul is a SWPS parent, who wants to make us think about education. Since he left university, great progress has been made in pushing up participation rates in higher education and, until the Credit Crunch hit, there seemed no limit as to how high the rate could go. But should everyone go into higher education? And what are they going there for? We think we know what a university is, but are we right?
• Prith Babra
  Prith is a Management Consultant. He previously trained as an Economist. Hobbies include advising SME and start-up businesses. Career highlights include helping make a UN body more financially accountable (a good thing), working on the Treasury project to keep the UK out of the Euro (probably a good thing) and assisting with the design of a bank's Credit Derivatives function (maybe not a good thing). Prith will be talking to us about changes in the world of work and why creating the job you want can be the best option.
• James Greyson
  James is head of BlindSpot think tank, applying systems thinking to intermingled global crises. He advises on ending the failure to solve any global problem by solving them all – as a whole system. He is a Fellow of the Earth Systems Governance Project and works on collective intelligence with MIT’s Climate CoLab as well as contributing to the NATO Science Programme. Hear him tell us how to unlearn unsustainability.
• Matt Walker
  The Urban Dance School (U.D.S) started in 2004 now running dance classes across the south east region in styles such as street dance, break dance, poppin, locking, contemporary and partner work/duet. Our teaching staff are all current professional performers whose combine credits include working with world famous artists such as Palamo Faith, Jls, Alexandra burke, Whitney Housten, Mariah Carey, Cheryl Cole and Chris Brown as well as appearing in stage shows such as hairspray, riverdance, mary poppins, joseph, hair, into the hoods and thriller live. We work really hard with our students providing them with constant opportunities to perform at a wide range of festivals, events, battles and showcases. Our classes start for age 6 all way up to adults of all ages and we aim for our sessions to be enjoyable and educational ensuring that every student of ours has fun, improves and most importantly is assisted in gaining what it is that they want out of their dancing with us.
• Fiona Macbeth
  Fiona Macbeth is a Senior Lecturer in the Drama Department at the University of Exeter, specialising in Applied Theatre. She uses story in all her teaching and project facilitation, working with both personal and fictional stories. She is currently working with two different groups: young care leavers and veterans from Afghanistan, exploring their experiences of moving from one community to another and developing shared stories that illustrate these experiences. She will talk about how story making and story telling are essential to our humanity.
• Sherry Husselbury
  Sherry is Head of Years 10 and 11, and originally from South Africa. She will be telling us about this day thirty-six years ago, reminding us why we should still remember and learn from the Soweto uprising.
• Anna Stearman
  Anna Stearman trained at the University of Kent at Canterbury, and Central School of Speech and Drama. She is a poet and teaches classes and workshops in Creative Writing, Literature and Physical Theatre at Richmond and Kingston Universities. In previous careers she worked as a film production assistant, founded the theatre company Aporia, directing and performing in collaboration with other practitioners, taught Adult Literacy for Hounslow Community College, and ran Teddington Children's Theatre, producing plays at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, and Hampton Hill Playhouse. Her poems have appeared in various journals including The Interpreters House, The Text, and Smiths Knoll. Falling in Love is Anna's exploration of the writing and reading process.
• Susan Du Toit
  Susan du Toit is a final year student at Warwick University and organiser of TEDxWarwick. She also went to a school not a million miles away from this one... With her experiences at school, university and as an organiser Susan will be talking to us about "What has she learnt the most from?"
• Rachel Farago
  A current SWPS student, will talk about her own experiences of overcoming Trichomania or trichotillomania and how her experience has helped others. We’ll also get to hear her sing!
• Adrian Jackson
  Adrian is the founder, artistic director and chief executive of Cardboard Citizens, a ground-breaking company of actors and trainers who have had experience of homelessness. As a writer, director and as a world expert on Boal’s Forum Theatre approach to social empowerment, Adrian is the perfect person to talk about learning by doing.
• Philip Robinson
  Philip Robinson is a musician and multi-media artist based in the West Country. He co-founded Wolf + Water Arts Company and has worked with countless groups of young people, people with profound disabilities, asylum seekers, those in psychiatric units and prisons, and community groups both nationwide and abroad. At the heart of his work is a belief in the transformational qualities of inclusive music-making for all, fuelling his passion tomake those art forms accessible and enjoyable to everyone he works with - from creating theatre performances with challenging young people on estates in Northern Ireland to producing musical sound tracks for film with people with learning difficulties. Philip will be encouraging us to learn through listening, his talk is called What's The Real Soundtrack To Your Life?
• Lizzie Sevenoaks
  A former SWPS pupil and animator, won first prize at the London International Animation Festival 2011 for her beautiful paper-cut short film "ROOTS OF THE HIDDEN". Stopping off from her global tour with the film, Lizzie will screen her animation and talk about what she has learned from the experience.
• Bella Thornton
  Bella is 10 years old and lives in Dulwich SE London. She had a brain tumour when she was 2 and as a result is now partially sighted. Throughout many years of treatment she has remained positive, stoical and optimistic and is always smiling. She loves singing, drama and hanging out with her friends.
• Pippa Marriott
  Starting her working life in the peace movement, Pippa’s interest in drama and teaching grew out of conference planning and work with young people, leading (via a cross-community project in Belfast and drama work in prisons, PRUs and homeless centres) towards a PGCE. With Twenty years of teaching experience in Haringey and Surrey, and several years in Devon working as Education Manager for the South West Film Council, writing TV scripts, and doing freelance work, Pippa is now Head of Year 7 at Sir William Perkins’s School. As co-ordinator of TEDxSWPS she attended the TEDx SUMMIT in Doha and is our host for the conference.
• Maria Walsh
  Maria is one of the longest surviving heart/lung transplant patients, having been born with cystic fibrosis, and is in the process of writing a book about her experiences and will talk about the lessons from life. Though Maria has been given a second chance of life, this isn't the whole story . . .