HMC Conference 2026

This pic is of me embracing my audience!

Honestly, I feel so lucky most of the time! I love the opportunity to get children and adults just to laugh or relax through having fun and enjoying each other’s company. I am sure laughter is giving me longevity – I still feel as fresh as I ever did when directly working with people (the admin, writing and computer work needed to power my work is a different matter though!!)

So here I am presenting at HMC (The Head’s Conference) – the oldest Headteacher’s association founded in 1869. It was initially formed by headteachers to ensure that politicians backed off from interfering with their schools. Well, I think that’s what I heard over dinner afterwards! There is a strength and a clarity of purpose about this organisation. They have a certainty about their roots and the ways forward which has been shaped over the years.

These attendees together have hundreds of years’ experience of managing, campaigning, inspiring, writing, collaborating and innovating between them so my usual nerves set in badly. It is that ‘imposter’ voice that says, “it would be better to just dazzle them with research on the importance of fun, no need to engage in games that they will find irritating as they will deflect from the intellectual questioning thrust of the conference”.

However, the other resistant voice in my head, that has survived thousands of conferences, spoke clearly though, “you know people actually love engaging, trying new things and just being playful”. All teachers need to keep in contact with the child inside them. Otherwise, they lose touch with what young people really want: warmth, spontaneity and eye to eye engagement which ends in a good giggle. Rigorous research continually shows that what children prioritise about school is the need for listening, laughing teachers.

So, on I go and with the first chuckles my certainty strengthens. Bless them all – they had me for two presentations for two and a half hours and they abandoned all of their mobile devices and were fully present. And it is funny – finding out that we can’t play games in an agile way like children. We have poorer concentration and memory retention as we age. Fun and games are where all students can shine – consequently when they play with the adults the experience always builds their self-esteem and compassion for our poor attempts. Many a relationship between teachers and students has been balanced by teachers being less skilled in these areas.

So YES I enjoyed myself. My respect for everyone in the audience was absolute. They all pitched in, moved around and allowed themselves to look vulnerable whilst giggling away. There are always skills we shine up by engaging in these sorts of activities – the teachers task is to tease these out, share them with the students and explain how the skills they use in games – Speaking, Listening, Looking, Concentrating and Thinking – can be applied to the next academic work task.

It is great to receive ‘thank yous’ and this pithy sentence somehow captured the essence and lifted me up from the low that can happen after a conference.

“I thoroughly enjoyed your session, and there was much I took away to reflect on and put into practice.

You set a wonderful tone, and curated a brilliantly lively and collegiate session: a super start to our time together and very much in tune with the spirit of dialogue we wanted to create.”

PS thank you Grace Crawford for the photos!

So, on I go, off to India in a few days to run an intense Train the Trainers programme so that these experienced teachers will have the confidence, expertise and courage to train others in this pedagogy. See, I am very lucky… and happy.