Swati Popat Vats

Country: India

Swati Popat Vats is a renowned Indian education, parenting mentor, and author with over 38 years of experience in early childhood education. She is the President of the Early Childhood Association (ECA) India, the Association for Primary Education and Research (APER), and the Podar Education Network. Swati is also the founder of Podar Jumbo Kids and Podar Prep.

Her international contributions include serving as the Early Years Consultant and Series Editor for the Cambridge International Early Years Programme in India, as well as being on the advisory board of Cambridge University Press and Assessment South Asia. Swati is a global thought leader in early years education, curriculum design, and brain development, and is the founding expert behind Born Smart, the world's first video-based parenting platform focused on the first 1000 days of a child's life.

Brain Development and its Impact on Learning

Saturday, June 28, 2025 | 10 AM - 11 AM

Michaela Epstein

Country: Australia

Michaela Epstein is Founder and Director of Maths Teacher Circles. She has worked with thousands of teachers (K-12) and school leaders globally to increase their impact in maths. Michaela has been awarded by the Australian Council for Educational Research for her work in improving school numeracy outcomes.

Michaela has taught maths and led teams in rural and urban schools, developed state-wide maths leadership programs and designed problems and puzzles used by over 100,000 students. Through her work, her aim is to help teachers reignite their own curiosity and develop strategies to support all students become stronger mathematical thinkers.

Two Powerful Routines for Serious Impact in the Maths Classroom

Saturday, June 28, 2025 | 11:15 AM - 12:15 PM
Description

Do your students give up easily in maths? Do you have students who are good at following rules, but struggle to think for themselves? In this session, you'll learn about two powerful maths routines that are specially designed to unlock new ideas, insights, and reasoning about mathematics. Both routines are suitable for K-12 classrooms and can be easily adapted to be used across curriculum topics. You'll also explore strategies and techniques for facilitating routines that you can then use to help your students articulate their thinking, form connections, and learn more maths than would be possible if working alone from a textbook or worksheet.

Key takeaways
  • A different view on 'routines' in the maths classroom.
  • Two powerful routines you can use with all students and across topics.
  • Five strategies you can use to get the most out of any maths routine.

Gavin McCormack

Country: Australia

Gavin McCormack is the co-founder of Upschool.co, Montessori Australia Ambassador, and one of the world's top ten most influential educators. With over 20 years of experience, Gavin has built schools, libraries, and training centres around the globe. He advocates for real-world, purpose-driven education and empowers teachers and children to create meaningful change. A TEDx speaker and best-selling author, Gavin's work is driven by a deep belief in agency, connection, and compassion in the classroom.

Education for the 21st Century – Building Purpose-Driven Classrooms

Saturday, June 28, 2025 | 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM (Recorded Session)
Description

This keynote will explore how we can redefine educational success by aligning curriculum delivery with real-world impact, neuroscience, and purpose. Drawing on global case studies, we'll unpack how Montessori-informed strategies and inquiry-led learning foster student agency, resilience, and a lifelong love of learning. Gavin will also share powerful stories from his global work with schools and communities and practical frameworks that schools can implement immediately to build classrooms where children thrive academically, socially, and emotionally.

Key takeaways
  • Understanding how the brain prefers to learn and how to structure learning accordingly
  • Strategies for fostering independence, empathy, and agency in children
  • Real examples of values-based education making global impact
  • The importance of connection over curriculum
  • A vision for future-ready schools and educators

Debbie Hepplewhite, MBE

Country: United Kingdom

Debbie Hepplewhite is the author of three ‘systematic synthetic phonics' programmes validated by the Department for Education in England. She provides practical advice for parents, teachers, trainers, politicians and publishers, and also offers phonics consultancy services to schools and universities internationally.

Debbie advised the UK parliamentary inquiry 'Teaching Children to Read' (March 2005) and Sir Jim Rose's 'Independent review of the teaching of early reading' (Final Report, Jim Rose, March 2006). She is the founder of the International Foundation for Effective Reading Instruction. In 2012, Debbie was awarded an MBE in the Queen's New Year Honours List for Services to Education.

Website https://syntheticphonics.com/
Watch and Learn YouTube

The 'embracing-all' vision for phonics provision

Saturday, June 28, 2025 | 2:30 PM - 3:30 PM
Description

Debbie Hepplewhite brings together decades of rich and varied teaching and teacher-training experience, along with her political advocacy for phonics provision grounded in decades of international research into reading, spelling, and writing in English. Her extensive work in designing phonics resources and programmes has given her deep insight into how best to support all stakeholders in practical and impactful ways.

In this session, Debbie shares the culmination of her experience and stresses that while effective literacy instruction is not "rocket science," it is often misunderstood or overlooked by educators. She challenges traditional perceptions and offers a compelling call for a shared, research-informed approach to foundational literacy.

Key takeaways
  • Understanding the complexities of the English alphabetic code is essential. Tangible, visible, and shared Alphabetic Code Charts are a foundational tool for everyone.
  • The perception that phonics is only for infants or beginners needs to be significantly revised.
  • Research findings on effective reading instruction have existed for decades, but implementation has been inconsistent even among academics.
  • Educators will gain clarity on the key ingredients for effective teaching in diverse settings.
  • Emphasis on the importance of observing 'time on task' to assess the effectiveness of phonics instruction.
  • Encouragement to adopt mindset shifts, simple yet effective frameworks, and practical classroom ideas, while recognising and moving away from strategies that are not delivering impact for all learners.

Lisa Vitarisi Mathews

Country: United States

Lisa Vitarisi Mathews serves as Publisher of Evan-Moor Educational Publishers. In this role, Mathews oversees the publishing of materials through all stages of development, from conceptualizing and planning to production. Since joining Evan-Moor in 2002, Mathews has represented the company in the United States and abroad, giving workshops and product training, and learning how teachers use Evan-Moor resources.

Her previous experience in working with students in grades K-8 and her keen knowledge of what works in classrooms to enhance both teaching and learning have shaped Evan-Moor's positive contribution to educational publishing.

Growing Early Learners Through STEM and STEAM Activities

Saturday, June 28, 2025 | 6:30 PM - 7:00 PM
Description

Learn how to enrich your daily lessons and grow your students’ problem-solving skills with hands-on activities that practice basic skills from across the curriculum! From creativity and critical thinking to expressive language and fine motor skills development, STEM and STEM lessons give basic skills a boost and create a classroom culture of curiosity, purposeful play, and advanced thinking. Join me to explore:

  • the role of STEM/STEAM in early childhood education
  • how a design framework helps children develop resilience and boosts confidence
  • simple, developmentally appropriate activities that foster problem-solving
  • strategies to integrate STEM/STEAM into your daily classroom routines

Plus, receive STEM and STEAM freebies that will help you begin your school year with cooperation and collaboration at the center of your learning experiences.

Key takeaways
  • Attendees will understand how STEM and STEAM activities transform basic skills lessons into hands-on experiences that make learning more meaningful by connecting it to the real world.
  • Attendees will understand how design thinking can be applied to every area of the curriculum to develop students’ abilities as analytical thinkers and resilient and motivated problem-solvers.

Christina Tondevold

Country: United States

Christina Tondevold, known as The Recovering Traditional, is a passionate advocate for transforming math education. Having once taught math through conventional methods that emphasized rote memorization, she now empowers teachers to foster deep mathematical understanding in their students. Through her platform BuildMathMinds.com, Christina provides professional development resources that promote engaging, student-centered math instruction-offering educators "PD at Your Fingertips."

Unlocking the Power of Number Sense: Building Confident and Flexible Young Mathematicians

Saturday, June 28, 2025 | 7:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Description

Are your students still counting on their fingers despite drilling math facts? This session reveals why traditional memorization approaches often fail and provides a research-based alternative that builds lasting mathematical understanding. You'll discover the critical difference between "memorizing" and "knowing from memory," explore the four foundational number relationships every student needs, and learn why flexibility is the missing piece in most fluency instruction. Through interactive demonstrations, you'll experience how students naturally develop sophisticated strategies when we focus on building number sense first. Walk away with ideas for three practical math experiences—number sense activities, contextual story problems, and engaging games—that you can implement immediately to help your students become truly fluent mathematicians who approach problems with confidence rather than counting strategies.

Key takeaways
  • Fundamental Mindset Shift: Learn why "strategies aren't taught, they're caught" and how to move from teaching procedures to facilitating mathematical thinking through the four essential number sense relationships
  • Immediate Implementation Tools: Receive ready-to-use Number Sense routines, fact progression charts, and assessment strategies that reveal student thinking—replacing timed tests with meaningful evaluation methods
  • Practical Daily Framework: Get the three-component approach (Number Sense Routines, Story Problems, Games) that builds flexibility and helps students naturally develop derived fact strategies for lasting fluency.

Willibrord George

Country: India

Willibrord George started and runs a group of low cost affordable private schools near Mumbai and specializes in creating tech-enabled and student-driven high-value, scalable, innovative educational processes and in-school systems that help children from all segments of the socio-economic strata to find their voice and develop agency and get an equal chance at influencing their own futures.

In school, Willibrord has developed various innovative projects. Such as Project Breakthrough (Student-led parents meeting), Project RISE (A real-time teaching improvement system), Project DDA (Daily dose of awesome - a strategic planning tool for school students), Project Worldclass ( A module to have students learn about all the nations of the world - global perspectives), Project SPIRIT (An in school scholastic data tracking and analytics tools led by students to help them focus on academic improvement area. These projects are constantly developed and shared widely with practitioners for contextualization and adoption. Willibrord was also recognized as an innovative school leader nationally by Advaith Foundation and awarded by Mr. Narayana Murthy the co-founder of Infosys.

AI in Education

Sunday, June 29, 2025 | 10 AM - 11 AM

Faye Berryman AM

Country: Australia

Faye Berryman AM began her teaching career in 1965 as a secondary school teacher. Confronted by the literacy challenges faced by her students, she recognized the need for strong foundational education. In 1976, alongside her husband Philip O'Carroll, she co-founded Fitzroy Community School. Determined to find a more effective way to teach reading, she developed the Fitzroy Readers' Systematic Synthetic Phonics Method, a research-driven approach that has empowered countless children to learn to read and write with confidence.

Inside Fitzroy Community School: Cultivating Character, Confidence and Curiosity in Learners

Sunday, June 29, 2025 | 11:15 AM - 12:15 PM
Description

This session will use Fitzroy Community School as a model to demonstrate how the debates of the 1960s and the 1970s, which questioned long-accepted, traditional values and ways of doing things, gave rise to the birth of alternative schools. The session will consider the aspiration of these school founders, and why such a cultural change in education was believed to be necessary. It will also consider why so few of these schools have survived and, by contrast, the secret of success of Fitzroy Community School.

The session will look inside Fitzroy Community School to show the importance a community plays in raising young children. It will show how the structure of day-to-day school life has a formative effect on the developing child, and on the child's acquisition of confidence, curiosity and character.

Key takeaways
  • Why found a school?
  • What is a 'community school'?
  • Essentials in the curriculum: sport; camps; literature; gaining a voice

Mark William Barnett

Country: Thailand

Mark William Barnett is a PhD Researcher, studying how children and adults learn from interacting with AI, and more importantly, what can they learn about themselves while using Artificial Intelligence. Mark lives in Chiang Mai, Thailand and studies at Chiang Mai University in the legacy of Seymour Papert (the founder of Constructionism) on the topic of his thesis "Neural Syntonicity". He spent 20 years in the education industry working at international schools around the world as a Design and Technology teacher and he currently provides consultancy services for makerspaces, design thinking, constructionism, robotics and AI.

For over 20 years, Mark has been a proponent, practitioner and leader in the pedagogical learning theory of constructionism which suggests that learning is most conducive when students have agency and autonomy while learning and that learning is best synthesized.

What can you learn about yourself while using AI? AI researcher reflects on the last 5 years of AI and visions for the next 5

Sunday, June 29, 2025 | 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM
Description

In this session, we'll explore the concept of "Neural Syntonicity", a framework developed by the speaker in his PhD research to bridge students' cognitive abilities with artificial intelligence learning tools. Rooted in Constructiv Learning Theory, this approach emphasises how learners can see similarities between their intelligence and Artificial Intelligence, fostering a deeper connection to using AI as a tool for self-discovery.

Drawing from a study published in the International Journal of Information and Education Technology, we'll explore:

  • The design and implementation of AI image-recognition tools that encourage reflection on bias
  • The development of a supportive "microworld" environment that facilitates exploration of AI concepts
  • Scenarios that prompt students to reflect on their cognitive labeling processes during AI interactions

The speaker's findings indicate that students not only acquire technical AI skills but also gain insights into their own cognitive biases and thought patterns through participating in constructiv-based learning scenarios. This learning process underscores the potential of AI as a mirror, reflecting and challenging students' internal thinking.

Educators will leave this talk with practical strategies and inspiration to explore AI beyond using it as a tool, but as a mirror for self-growth.

Key takeaways
  • Learn to see AI as more than just a writing robot, but as a reflection of your own thinking
  • Explore the benefits of construction education pedagogy
  • See examples from real life where AI is used in unexpected ways

Yvonne Dalorto

Country: UK/Spain

Yvonne Dalorto serves as an educational content and training consultant for Jolly Learning UK, where she collaborates extensively with international schools, educators, and trainers. With experience as a teacher in the United Kingdom and a former headteacher at a British school located in southern Spain, Yvonne brings a wealth of expertise to her role.

Her professional responsibilities include developing educational projects aimed at promoting literacy in Africa and Southeast Asia, in partnership with charitable organisations and government ministries. Yvonne adopts an anthropological approach to education, emphasizing the cultural dimensions of both informal and formal educational systems.

The Heart of Learning: Early Years Education and Social-Emotional Learning (SEL)

Sunday, June 29, 2025 | 2:30 PM - 3:30 PM

Sharani Ponguru

Country: India

Sharani Ponguru is the Director of Narayana Educational Institutions, Asia's largest education group. She is a transformational leader, certified ICF coach, author, and personal development expert with over 12 years of leadership experience. With a Master's in International Business Management from Newcastle University, UK, she combines strategy, emotional intelligence, and vision to revolutionize academic and mindset-based systems across India.

Mindset Shift: Cultivating Emotional Strength, Intention, and Clarity in Classrooms

Sunday, June 29, 2025 | 3:45 PM - 4:45 PM
Description

In this impactful session, transformational coach and author Sharani Ponguru draws from her breakthrough workbook Mindset Shift to guide educators on how to help students build inner clarity, emotional balance, and purpose. Sharani introduces a practical, emotionally engaging framework rooted in chapters like Growth vs. Fixed Mindset, Gratitude Anchoring, Intention Setting, Dream Visualization, Power of Why, What & How, Goal Setting, and Affirmation Practices. Participants will also learn the importance of beginning the day with joy and presence through simple rituals like starting your day with your favorite activity.

This session equips educators with mindset coaching tools, breathwork, reflection prompts, and belief-shifting techniques to use in the classroom—empowering students to not just succeed academically, but thrive emotionally and mentally. It's a powerful invitation to rethink how we teach, lead, and awaken the potential in every learner.

Key takeaways
  • Learn how to apply the Growth Mindset and Gratitude Framework to help students overcome fear, anxiety, and self-doubt
  • Discover the power of intention setting, daily affirmations, and breathwork as emotional regulation tools in educational settings
  • Use dream visualization, reflective questioning (Why, What, How), and joy-anchoring activities to inspire clarity, confidence, and intrinsic motivation in students

Dr. Raj Shah

Country: United States

Dr. Raj Shah is a math education visionary dedicated to making math irresistible for children. After earning a Ph.D. in Physics and working at Intel, he founded Math Plus Academy in 2008-an after-school enrichment program that promotes joyful, conceptual learning. He is a founding member of The Global Math Project, which has reached over 7 million students around the world.

A dynamic TEDx speaker and frequent presenter at national and international conferences, Dr. Shah inspires educators to shift from procedural teaching to cultivating number sense and a love for problem-solving.

Making Math Irresistible: What Teachers Can Learn from the Psychology of Video Games

Sunday, June 29, 2025 | 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Description

Learn five principles to make maths irresistible for kids. We will explore why students lose interest in maths and how we can spark curiosity and increase engagement. In addition, you'll learn the key requirements to crafting an experience that encourages productive struggle. Finally, we discuss techniques to promote meaningful student discourse.

The seminar will feature a combination of stories and math activities so you'll see and feel what "fun" maths can be like.

Key takeaways
  • Five principles to make maths irresistible for kids
  • Why students lose interest in maths
  • How to spark curiosity and increase engagement
  • Key requirements for crafting experiences that encourage productive struggle
  • Techniques to promote meaningful student discourse
  • What "fun" maths looks and feels like through stories and activities

Christopher Geary

Country: UK / Hong Kong

Chris is a social entrepreneur focused on developing initiatives that reduce inequalities by lowering barriers to accessing the opportunities of the Future of Work. Chris is the CEO of BSD Education and Young Founders School, an MIT LEAP Social Entrepreneurship Fellow and Chairman of the Kennedy School in Hong Kong.

Empowering Youth for an AI-Driven Future

Sunday, June 29, 2025 | 6:15 PM - 7:00 PM
Description

How can young people best prepare for success in a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence? As AI transforms the nature of work and narrows entry-level opportunities by automating routine tasks, students must rethink how they build their skills, experiences, and aspirations.

This session emphasizes the importance of developing independent creativity and aligning early work experiences with long-term career goals. It offers practical guidance on how students can make informed decisions about their education, interests, and pathways to meaningful opportunities.

It also highlights the need for youth to be equipped not only to use AI, but to understand the underlying principles of ethics, data privacy, security, and automation. By integrating AI tools into their personal workflows, young people can increase their productivity and amplify their ability to demonstrate their unique human strengths.

Finally, participants are encouraged to apply these insights by creating projects that reflect their passions and demonstrate initiative—key elements for thriving in a rapidly evolving digital future.

Key takeaways
  • Developing creativity and career-aligned experience in an AI-driven world.
  • Understanding and using AI responsibly to boost productivity and personal value.
  • Creating passion-driven projects to showcase initiative and human strengths.