Thames Valley Annual School Heads, Senior, Business & Safeguarding Leaders 2023 Conference and Exhibition

Emily Konstantas

Emily is founder of The Safeguarding Alliance, an advisor, governor and trustee to many organisations and Schools. She has studied both a Bachelor and Masters in Law and is currently working towards her PhD in International Child Protection Law. Often a keynote speaker Emily is an experienced trainer working in the United Kingdom, Europe, United States, and MENA and ASEAN regions. Emily is an expert School improvement partner, and experienced change manager in the preparation for ISI, Ofsted and BSO inspections. Emily has contributed to the Education Select Committee in the United Kingdom during COVID-19, has featured on the BBC, Sky News and many national newspapers. Emily continues to campaign for changes to safeguarding legislation in the United Kingdom.

Ruth Young

Ruth has 25 years of experience of working in education, including: teaching in mainstream schools; leading a unit for fixed term excluded pupils; and working as a Local Authority advisor. Currently, She works within the Department for Education, initially within the Regional School Commissioner’s office (now Regions Group), before transferring to the Education, Skills and Funding Agency (ESFA), where she leads on the commissioning of School Resource Management Advisers across 34 Local Authorities. She has been an LA Maintained school governor for five years and is in her third year as Chair of Governors. During her term as a governor, she has supported the school in achieving Good (June 2019), following their Requires Improvement Judgement of February 2017, and is currently leading the school in its journey to academy conversion. She has been a member of the Bath and Wells Diocesan Board of Education for four years and takes an active role in promoting high quality education across the diocese. Extending her governance roles further, she has recently joined two South West Trusts, one as a Foundation Trustee and the other as a Foundation Member. She is extremely passionate about the education of all children and young people and recognise the need for schools to make best use of available resource to provide an outstanding education for pupils. And when not doing all things education, she can be found walking, be it an afternoon stroll around her village or a South West Coast Path trek, having secured an unsuspecting family member to accompany her. Alternatively, she might be spotted clambering to her seat in Bristol’s stadium, 20 year season ticket in hand, to cheer with great enthusiasm for Bristol Rugby!

Sarah Creegan

Sarah is one of Laughology’s leading facilitators and consultants who designs and delivers learning and change programmes. When Sarah chose to leave school at 16, she was told by 3 separate teachers that ‘she wouldn’t amount to much’. That didn’t put her off though! Since then she has had a varied career, working with banks, businesses, retail, educational and sporting organisations, supporting their learning and development needs before becoming a head teacher. In her first two years of headship, she successfully managed a £7m rebuild; an expansion programme to double the number of pupils and a culture-change programme. All of these projects ensured her school went from a satisfactory Ofsted ranking to a good. During this time, she managed key stakeholders, including local authorities, school inspectors and governors, she also successfully guided her team through an improvement programme. Sarah firmly believes in the importance of happiness, humour and positivity in the workplace and is one the funniest former headteachers we know - apart, possibly from Greg Davies and Romesh Ranganathan. At Laughology, Sarah’s learning and development knowledge, coupled with her leadership skills and experience have also stood her in good stead when designing and delivering programmes in businesses and organisations such as O2, Savills, Trafford Housing Trust, Office of Public Guardian, Oxford University. Sarah's experience as a highly successful head teacher also makes her the perfect advisor and facilitator for Laughology's education programmes. Her wealth of experience and knowledge of the inner-workings of schools, the education sector and the business world are invaluable in helping us to help schools, teachers and young people flourish. She was also instrumental in developing the Laughology Happy-Centred School PSHE programme.

Vicky Wilson

Vicky is a Senior Associate in the Education Team at Browne Jacobson and has provided legal advice to schools for over 10 years. Vicky is an Independent Schools and Safeguarding specialist. She regularly advises on complex safeguarding matters, parental complaints, Family law issues that relate to the sector and data protection. Having previously worked in-house for an Educational Trust, Vicky has seen things from both sides and uses her insight to connect with clients and provide pragmatic advice. Vicky’s broad range of experience enables her to support schools with contentious and non-contentious work as well as with day-to-day operational advice, including admissions, exclusions and special educational needs. She is known for her governance and pastoral advice to independent schools and academies.