THE FACILITATORS

Dr John Edwards is Managing Director of Edwards Explorations, an Australian-based company focussed on exploring and developing human potential. He has a long and distinguished career in educational research, and has been one of the major research grant recipients in cognitive science in Australia. He is internationally recognised for his research on thinking and professional growth and learning. John is also Adjunct Professor of Education at the University of Queensland. He is one of the few top international researchers to have turned his research into award-winning practice in education, elite sport, business and industry. John is also a personal coach to a number of business leaders, sporting coaches and players, and school leaders, around the world.

Bill Martin is the best leader John has encountered in 30 years of educational and business experience in over 20 countries. He has won national awards as a principal in the USA and his services are in strong demand to help schools to make sustained progress. On two occasions Bill has led his staff to create award-winning schools, and these were in challenging areas. Most recently, Monroe High School in Detroit won an award as one of the top high schools in America. Bill is currently working to establish an international network of Teacher Designed Schools based on his successful career in school leadership. He brings a huge store of personal practical knowledge on systems thinking, forming leadership teams, and growing leadership in schools. Bill has worked in nine different countries, in the education, government and corporate sectors.

Stephen Gaskin has been a leader of change for over thirty years in US intermediate and secondary schools. As a principal, he has led schools of every size, each achieving State recognition.  He became an education consultant and staff developer for the Educational Service Center in Houston, Texas. He was responsible for coaching, supporting, certifying and providing professional development for 54 school districts. Steve specializes in personal visioning and couples’ shared visioning. He has supported Habits of Mind training in the US, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and the Middle East, and helped school districts across the USA create smaller learning communities. He has his own consulting company, SGEC, and is US Coordinator of Teacher Designed Schools.

James Nottingham has a distinguished career in educational innovation in the UK, starting as a charity worker in the townships and squatter camps of South Africa during apartheid. He has worked in a residential school for deaf children, as a middle school teacher, and co-founded the Raising Aspirations in Schools Project which grew to a two million pound project supporting education, public and voluntary organizations across the UK. At each of his jobs, James has made nationally recognized innovations: from deaf children playing representative soccer for England for the first time; to a nationally televised documentary on teaching children thinking skills; to being a member of the original Thinking Skills Project in Newcastle that advised the UK government on thinking skills policy, which is now a part of their national curriculum. Over three years he grew a national network of over 1,000 teachers, for teaching Philosophy for Children. James is the UK and Europe Coordinator of Community Designed Schools.

Kate Perkins has over twenty years experience in the dynamics of individual, organisational, industry and community development.  Prior to founding her own consultancy company, Kate was a senior manager with the Education Department of South Australia and involved in teacher training, curriculum development and research.  In her consulting work, she draws on this background, on studies in leadership, and on the experience she has gained in working across all levels of government and diverse industries and communities. Kate has spent many years developing her understanding of facilitation methods that genuinely involve participants in the thinking, planning and implementation of change, and that challenge them to think laterally as an integral part of the process.  She has developed a unique approach to building effective thinking teams. Kate is the Australian Coordinator of Teacher Designed Schools.

Beth Dungey is Leadership and Management Adviser at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. She is the area coordinator for the Rotorua area, and National Leadership and Management representative for the Central North Region. She has long experience as a primary school principal. Beth is currently facilitator for one of four National pilot projects trialling the integration of key competencies into a cluster of eight schools. She is also helping schools develop their own curriculum around inquiry based learning and integrated curriculum. She specializes in the development of distributed leadership in senior leadership teams, developing leadership capacity in schools, and in sustainability of innovations and initiatives in schools. Beth is the New Zealand Coordinator of Teacher Designed Schools.