Tim Rylands
Tim Rylands has been described as “an extremely gifted and inspirational teacher, with a love of the creative potential of technology and an excellent rapport with his pupils”.
With 30 years of classroom experience, in the UK, and beyond, including 4 years in West Africa, Tim is now much in demand for training days, conferences and seminars around the world, presenting the results of his work in an inspiring, practical and often humorous way.
Observers have commented on his imaginative and encouraging style of teaching, which allows children to express their creativity and make significant gains in attainment.
He has received notable recognition for using computer games, and Web 2 technologies to inspire children’s creative confidence in many areas of the curriculum – writing, speaking and listening, music, thinking skills, collaboration, interaction and much more.
Tim has received a vast amount of press coverage for his innovative use of ICT, and has featured on the BBC, ‘Teachers TV’, CNN, in The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, and many others. In 2005 he won the 2005 Becta ICT in Practice Award. In addition, Tim is also well known for the musicals he has written for children, which have been performed to great acclaim.
Tim is a firm believer that ICT is about communication more than technology… and that it should be FUN!
For more information visit: www.timrylands.com
Contact Tim directly: tim@timrylands.com
Telephone: Tim +44 (0)7798890475 or Sarah, +44 (0)7751061811
Sarah Neild
Sarah Neild is an award winning teacher with experience of inspiring schools with many creative uses of ICT
Sarah was awarded Advance Skills Teacher status in 2003 being described as an ‘exceptional teacher… teaching of the highest calibre, particularly in her dynamic use of ICT’. In 2004 Sarah was a finalist in Becta’s ICT in Practice Awards, where she was described as ‘an evangelist’ in her use of ICT.
Sarah was chosen as a Beacon School Teacher in a primary in the North West of England. She provided demonstration lessons in the use of ICT across the curriculum and supported colleagues, both in her own school and beyond, in developing their ICT skills.
As part of her local authority’s ‘Hands on Support’ team, Sarah guided many schools in their development of ICT. She has presented at BETT on the use of interactive technologies and worked with teacher training colleges to bring learning alive.
Since 2008 Sarah has worked alongside Tim Rylands, developing imaginative ways of using ICT to enhance learning in schools across the country, and beyond.
Telephone: Tim +44 (0)7798890475 or Sarah, +44 (0)7751061811
Ben Walden – Artistic Director
Ben is the founder and Artistic Director of Contender Charlie.
His work with staff and students has received major acclaim at education conferences around the world. He has given main keynote addresses for groups such as the ICP Convention in Australia, the ESF Principals in Hong Kong, ESSARP schools in Buenos Aires, the Latin America Headteachers Conference and the 3 International Baccalareate conferences for Europe, Asia and the Americas, as well as the IB World student Conference. He has also been a regular speaker at the New Heads Conference for the National College of School Leadership in the UK.
He is an actor and presenter who has played a number of leading roles on television and for the Donmar and Almeida theatre companies as well as at Shakespeare`s Globe. Having run many masterclasses for the Shakespeare`s Globe Education Centre he has worked in close collaboration with Mark Rylance and Richard Olivier in the development of an experiential theatre learning technique called Mythodrama.
As a Senior Associate at Olivier Mythodrama, Ben is now running sessions bringing this work at Leadership level into a broad range of organisations across the world. He has also run projects at a number of leading business schools including Columbia, OSBS, the London Business School and Insead.
“Contender Charlie” is the company he has formed to take this, and other theatre techniques, into education.
Its courses have now become a regular fixture at Headteacher conferences as well as at staff and student events all over Britain.
As well as his leadership and creativity courses for teaching staff, Ben runs sessions for students of many different abilities and backgrounds looking at themes of leadership and calling in their own lives.
His chief passion is using Shakespeare and Mythic stories to inspire meaning and purpose in the lives of young people and their mentors.