Norfolk School Leaders Conference 2025
Brought to you by Educate Norfolk and VNET Education CIC
The opening keynote: Leadership in the Future – Educational Strategy in the AI Era. Dan Fitzpatrick
Strategy is about leadership in the future.
If the only constant is change, then to earn our leadership in the future, we must adapt. The pace of artificial intelligence and the emergence of unconventional competition have created an environment where the transformation of the education system is essential if it is to survive.
Educational leaders are faced with a crucial decision point.
Dan Fitzpatrick shares the Three Box Solution to innovation so that you can create non-linear solutions for your organisation and develop your future leadership. Dan spends his time helping educational leaders, teams, and organisations around the world to embrace an uncertain future, so that together, we can build a better education system together.
Dan Fitzpatrick – THE[AI]EDUCATOR
A former teacher and high school Leader, Dan’s work has earned him accolades such as the Tech Champion Award at the Dynamite Awards in 2022, and recognition in the Latest EdTechS0 awards. Dan holds an M.A., from Durham University, PGCE from UCL, and a Post Graduate Diploma in Design Thinking & Innovation from MIT.
Dan’s unwavering commitment to the advancement of Al in education has made him a highly sought-after strategist and thought Leader, inspiring educators, professionals, and organisations worldwide.
The closing keynote: Education Trends 2025: What’s coming now and next? Laura McInerney
Do you struggle to stay on top of education news?
In this talk, Laura uses her knowledge from frontline education reporting, and inside sources, to give an insight into what changes are afoot in schools over the nest twelve months, and beyond.
Laura McInerne
Date: 6 November 2025
Time: 8:30 am – 4:00 pm
Venue: Norwich City Football Club, Carrow Road, Norwich, NR1 1JE
150+VAT
Workshops
Dan Fitzpatrick
Workshop 1: AI Quick Wins for Educational Leaders
This intensive professional development session is designed for Principals, Head Teachers, and senior educational leaders seeking practical AI applications. Addressing increasing administrative demands, the workshop introduces selected Artificial Intelligence tools proven to enhance leadership efficiency and effectiveness. Participants will engage directly with AI platforms capable of significantly optimising communication workflows, streamlining administrative processes, and facilitating creative problem-solving. Emphasis is placed on developing immediately applicable strategies for tasks such as drafting professional correspondence and organising workloads. The primary objective is to empower leaders to leverage AI responsibly, thereby reclaiming valuable time for strategic oversight and core educational priorities.
Paul Clark
Workshop 2: Progressive Masculinity
The most impactful work in the masculinity space does not ‘teach boys how to be men.’ Instead it’s about creating safe, nonjudgemental spaces to explore masculinity, giving our boys the agency to design the type of man, friend, partner, father they wish to be and showing them the incredible potential of their masculinties. With four billion men in the world there can four billion different ways of being a man. In this interactive workshop Paul will be exploring three main questions:
- 1. What are the prevalent views of masculinity amongst many of our young people?
- 2. What socio-cultural factors are shaping these views?
- 3. What evidence-based strategies can we employ to challenge regressive, dominance-based models of masculinity and promote a healthier, more aspirational understanding of what it can mean to ‘be a man’ in today’s world.
Education Support
Workshop 3: Creating a culture of wellbeing in schools to support staff at all levels
This workshop offers practical strategies and resources to foster a supportive and thriving environment for all school staff. Learn how to implement best practices and leadership strategies to promote wellbeing at all levels of your organisation and build a positive school culture.
Education Support provide resources and training to support individuals and help educational settings improve the mental health and wellbeing of teachers and education staff. Better mental health leads to better education. They are actively involved in research around mental health hand wellbeing and advocates for change in Government policy for the benefit of the education workforce.
James Heale
Workshop 4: The questions that refuse to go away.
In a world and education landscape that is often so volatile and ambiguous, trying to have all the answers is not only nigh on impossible but also a fools errand. Asking the right questions, the ‘big’ questions, however, encourages strategic thinking, improves decision-making and empowers other leaders in our organisations. Maggie Farrar says ‘An organisation will bend itself in the direction of the questions it persistently and consistently asks itself.’
In this workshop, James will use his wealth of experience as an executive coach and system leader to ask the questions that stick around, sharing examples of how high-performing organisations use them to improve the way they develop talent; make decisions; drive strategy and improve the quality of conversations. You will be guaranteed to go away with practical tools that you can use with your teams immediately.
