ALTERNATIVE EDUCATIONAL FUTURES CONFERENCE

17th JUNE 2016, BIRMINGHAM

The Centre for Personalised Education Presents

ALTERNATIVE EDUCATIONAL FUTURES

A day conference in memory of two radical educators Prof Roland Meighan (1937-2014) and Phillip Toogood (1935-2013)

Friday 17 June 2016 – 0900 to 1700

Birmingham City University, Baker Building, City North Campus, Perry Barr, Birmingham B42 2SU

http://www.bcu.ac.uk/about-us/maps-and-campuses/city-north-campus

The conference seeks to provide delegates with some inspirational appetisers into the world alternative education, alternative thinking and educational futures. Positive, celebratory, drawing on the past and the current, but futures-orientated. An opportunity to suspend current narrow thinking and get a real educational ‘detox’. The conference will be fast moving – a speed dating with alternative thinking leaving participants asking questions and wanting more!

Sally Alexander – The Kimichi School vision. Dr Leslie Barson – Forget learning and education, let’s dance! Dr Hilary Cremin – Reclaiming peace education for the twenty-first century; towards global perspectives grounded in trans-nationality. Dr Ian Cunningham – Self-managed learning made difficult. Fred Garnett WikiQuals; Self-accredited learning and personalised learning environments. Catherine Gathercole – Sharing learning from ‘Young people on the global stage; their education and their influence’. David Gribble – The importance of accepting variety. Professor Clive Harber – Can authoritarian and violent schools educate for peace and democracy? Derry Hannam – The growing network of Sudbury Model schools in Europe and their non-existence in England.  Dr Richard House and Josie Alwyn – Steiner education. Peter Humphreys – Professor Roland Meighan and Philip Toogood. Clare Lawrence – Flexischooling and the child with autism; why might it work?   Janette Mountford-Lees and Lynda O’Sullivan – Flexischooling at Hollinsclough Primary Academy and Q&A Panel. Dr Harriet Pattison – Home-based education and learning to read (title tbc). Anna Rogozinska – Community education, Caldmore Community Garden. Dr Tim Rudd – Negotiating neo-Liberalism; towards a concept of ‘Refraction’. Alison Sauer – Home-based education and Q&A Panel. Dr Rob Smith – Re-imagining ‘quality’ from a teacher’s perspective in Further Education. StateofEducation – Reflections on experience of critical pedagogy in the classroom. Mark Webster – Finding Voices Making Choices; art and creativity as a means to promote positive social change. Mike Wood – Home Education; the importance of published research to those on the ground (title tbc)

Audience

• 100, Inclusive of academics, teachers, other educators, students, parents and learners from the mainstream and alternatives.

Costs

• Birmingham City University staff / student allocation – free (first come, first served) thereafter £30
• Centre for Personalised Education  paid up members free (if interested ask for details when requesting booking information – £25 per year/£12 unwaged)
• All other interested participants £30

We anticipate this will be a popular event so please book your place early. Places will be allocated on a first come first served basis.

More Details:

 Booking / Conference Information – Please contact Peter Humphreys at

E: personalisededucationnow@blueyonder.co.uk  /  Peter.Humphreys@bcu.ac.uk 

or telephone: 01922 624097

 Conference Aims

• Honour the work and memory of two great educators – Prof Roland Meighan and Philip Toogood.
• To promote alternative educational narratives.
• To explore educational alternatives and learning that promotes a critical pedagogy, personalisation and the development of democracy.
• To celebrate and develop educational approaches built around the learner.
• Develop effective strategies for resistance against the current neoliberal educational project.
• To network the networks.
• To offer a mixture of presentations / workshops / question and answer / discussion formats
• To communicate inclusively with educators, academics, families, learners, and interested citizens.

Inputs

The conference draws upon on a wide range of themes from alternative educational thinking. They are not exhaustive but illustrative of looking at things differently.

• Alternative schools / philosophies
• Democratic Education
• Development Education
• Digital Technologies and Educational futures
• Educational Heretics Press
• Flexischooling
• Home-based Education
• Informal / Community Education
• Learner-managed learning
• Peace Education / Conflict Resolution / Human Rights
• Professor Roland Meighan / Philip Toogood
• Resisting Neoliberal Education
• Self-Managed Learning
• Student Voice

Bookstalls

• Educational Heretics Press
• LibEd (Libertarian Education)

Contributors

Sally Alexander Sally is headteacher of Kimichi School a new independent school aiming to develop a music based centre of learning that uses the medium of music to inspire and educate our young people.

Josie Alwyn Josie has been teaching in Steiner Waldorf education since 1975 and has considerable experience in teacher training. Josie works for the Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship, is co-director of the London Waldorf Teacher Training Seminar, and is also a trustee of the London Waldorf Trust.

Dr Leslie Barson Leslie is an experienced home educator and pioneer with home educating support groups.

Dr Hilary Cremin Dr Hilary Cremin is a Senior Lecturer at Cambridge University (Faculty of Education) who researches and teaches in the areas peace education and conflict resolution in schools and communities internationally.

Dr Ian Cunningham Ian is Chair of the Self Managed Learning College in Brighton. The SMLC is a unique educational organisation that supports young people (aged 7-16) in managing their own learning.

Fred Garnett Fred is currently Research Associate London Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education, University of London.’ In Russia Fred is known as the “scientist of self-education”.

Cathryn Gathercole For the last six years Cathryn has been the Director of Tide~global learning. This is a teachers’ network who believe young people have an entitlement to global learning, developing their own understanding through engagement with global issues.

David Gribble David is Co-ordinator of the International Democratic Education Network (IDEN), Editor for the Lib Ed collective and member of the Editorial board of Other Education.

Derry Hannam He has worked widely with many European school student organisations on the issue of school democracy.

Dr Richard House Richard House MA [Oxon], Ph.D., C.Psychol., AFBPsS, CertCouns [Cantab] is Senior Lecturer in Psychotherapy and Counselling, Department of Psychology (Research Centre for Therapeutic Education), University of Roehampton, London. Richard is a co-founder of the Save Childhood movement.

Peter Humphreys Peter is an experienced primary educator and headteacher. He is Chair, trustee and a director of the Centre for Personalised Education – Personalised Education Now. He currently works for Birmingham City University with teacher education.

Clare Lawrence Clare is researching autism and flexischooling approaches for her PhD and currently works as a senior lecturer in education at Sheffield Hallam University. She has two children, one of whom has autism, and works part-time for the National Autistic Society.

Prof Clive Harber Clive Harber is Emeritus Professor of International Education.. He has recently completed books on education, democracy and development; education in southern Africa; education and international development; and violence and schools in South Africa. He also has a key interest in the role of schooling in reducing and perpetrating violence internationally.

Janette Mountford-Lees Janette is the headteacher at Hollinsclough Primary Academy. Janette has been instrumental in developing flexischooling.

StateofEducation / LibED – 4 representatives The aims of libertarian education have much in common with other approaches to education in the liberal humanist tradition; to enable people to realise their innate potential to the full and to foster people’s self development across the full range of cultural intellectual, artistic, physical and emotional activities. Stateofeducation is a small collective of education practitioners, the result of collaboration between the London Radical Education Forum and Libertarian Education.

Lynda O’Sullivan Lynda is a passionate and gifted teacher. She works at Hollinsclough Primary Academy. Lynda is developing approaches working with flexischooling pupils and families.

Dr Harriet Pattison Harriet has recently been awarded her PhD researching home education and literacy and has written with Alan Thomas on the subject Rethinking Learning to Read (2016) Educational Heretics Press. Harriet is currently a lecturer in Early Childhood Studies at Liverpool Hope University.

Anna Rogozinska Anna has brought her community / informal education skills from Warsaw to Walsall. A passionate and committed educator always looking for little ways to bring positive change and a bit of optimism to everyday life.

Dr Rob Smith Rob is Reader in Education at Birmingham City University. A co-founder of the Centre for Research and Development in Lifelong Education (CRADLE.)

Dr Tim Rudd Currently, Tim is Principal Lecturer at the Education Research Centre at the University of Brighton. Tim is currently working on research activities relating to: ‘critical perspectives on educational technology’, and ‘resisting neo liberal education and alternative educational discourse, systems and practice’.

Alison Sauer (F. Inst. Pa) Alison is an experienced autonomous home-based educator, paralegal, trainer and campaigner. On several occasions she has given witness evidence to the House of Commons Education Select Committee on the subject of home education. She is a trustee / director of the Centre for Personalised Education and advocate for flexischooling.

Mark Webster Mark has recently become freelance after working at Staffordshire University for 12 years where he founded the Creative Communities Unit and went on to become the head of School for Art and Design.

Mike Wood Mike is an experienced home educator, author, researcher, speaker and publisher. Mike runs HomeEd UK, the largest home education support site in the country. Mike has recently taken over Educational Heretics Press and is developing a broader web presence and is moving into e-books alongside hard copy contents.

Costs

• Birmingham City University staff / student allocation – free (first come, first served) thereafter £30
• Centre for Personalised Education  paid up members free (if interested ask for details when requesting booking information – £25 per year / £12 unwaged)
• All other interested participants £30

More Details:

 Booking / Conference Information – Please contact Peter Humphreys at

E: personalisededucationnow@blueyonder.co.uk  /  Peter.Humphreys@bcu.ac.uk 

or telephone: 01922 624097