Summer Conference 2025
Tuesday 1st July, 12noon - 4pm
We are delighted to confirm the details of our 2025 summer conference. With a dynamic line-up of speakers from various education backgrounds, we will discuss and consider topics ranging from the national education agenda to managing our wellbeing and mental health.
Details of our guest speakers can be found below.
The conference is open to all within our schools leadership teams - we have opened the invitation to business managers, curriculum leads and senior leaders as we understand headteachers often find it difficult to get time out of school.
Our agenda will be as follows:
- Lunch & Networking
- Richard Sheriff OBE, CEO Red Kite Learning Trust , sharing his thoughts on the national education picture.
Curriculum Resource Speakers - Swaledale Alliance - Adding Value...
- Discussion / Workshops
- Arjuna Ishaya considering how to master your mind, be calm and clear in the chaos.
To book places for you and your colleagues, please email: info@swaledalealliance.org
Tickets are priced at £50 pp including lunch, this is to cover location hire, guest speaker and lunch. If we receive enough bookings this figure will reduce. If you wish to book two or more tickets, we will offer a reduced rate.
Guest Speakers
Richard Sheriff OBE, Chief Executive Officer, Red Kite Learning Trust
Richard is the Chief Executive Officer of the Red Kite Learning Trust. He started his career teaching geography in Leicester before moving to Leeds where he taught at the City of Leeds School and became a father of two boys. As a Deputy Headteacher in Bradford, Headteacher at Temple Moor in Leeds, then at Harrogate Grammar School, Richard has been a school leader for 25 years.
Richard has served as a National Leader of Education and Ofsted Inspector and has twice been the President of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL). He became the founding Chief Executive Officer of the Red Kite Learning Trust in 2015, an organisation that was built on the values and principles of the Red Kite Alliance which he pioneered with other school leaders over 14 years ago.
His commitment to ethical leadership and the importance of strong collaboration has been central to much of his work.
Richard serves as a Trustee for ASCL and for the Professional Teaching Institute. In 2023, Richard was honoured with an OBE for service to education.
Sarah Mintey MBE, Founder of Developing Experts
Sarah founded Developing Experts in October 2015. Since then, the company has grown from strength to strength, winning Tech Nation's Rising Star award in 2019 and being selected as one of 10 UK companies for Google's Immersion Growth Program in 2020.
In 2021, the company was featured in @J.P. Morgan Private Bank’s report on the Top 200 Female-Powered Businesses in the UK and recently secured a place on Tech Nation's Upscale programme. Developing Experts also won the BETT Awards for Best Classroom Resource - Teaching Aid in both 2022 and 2024. In addition, Sarah was recognised as an 'LDC Top 50 Most Ambitious Business Leader' in 2022. In 2024, the company won the Best AI Product and Best AI Product for Education categories at the National AI Awards and was a finalist for Best AI Product for Energy and Utilities.
Sarah herself was a finalist for High Growth Woman Founder of the Year at the UKBAA Angel Investor 2024 Awards. And hot off the press… Sarah is thrilled that Developing Experts is once again a BETT Finalist at the 2025 Awards in the following categories:
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2025 AI for Teaching and Assessment
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2025 International Digital Educational Resource
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2025 Primary Digital Learning Product Wider Curriculum
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2025 Transformation Impact
Developing Experts works with a range of tier 1 brands from the rail, energy, and construction industries to grow, track and build diverse talent pipelines for industry.
In 2020 Sarah was honoured with an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours list for her services to tech and education and was named by Startup Magazine 'Top 20 Most Influential Female Founder of 2020’.
Sarah is delighted to be working with thousands of schools and clients such as the EDF, Network Rail, Rolls Royce, BEIS, National Nuclear Labs, the Royal Horticultural Society and the Ministry of Defence.
Mark Cardy, Head of Education Partnerships, Charanga
Pen Portrait to follow
Arjuna Ishaya
Originally an outdoor instructor from New Zealand, Arjuna Ishaya has been a monk and meditation/mindfulness/spiritual teacher since 2003. He helps inspired people be more inspiring, calm, wise, courageous and fulfilled with more energy and purpose.
Arjuna has given talks and workshops to organisations as diverse as ASOS, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, and the Department for Education, and has been working with the British military and London’s Metropolitan Police bomb disposal squads since 2016.
Based in Richmond, North Yorkshire, he has published two books, and gets out kayaking and running in the mountains as much as he can.