Siân Williams - Speaker bios 2018

Speaker Information, Teachers' Day 2018

Siân Williams

Siân Williams worked for ten years as a teacher, head of department and head of year in inner London secondary schools, where she developed a passion for and deep commitment to working inclusively with young people from all over the world. She carried this with her when she became a senior education officer in a south London local authority. Here she led a variety of programmes for children and young people focused on including children and young people at risk of exclusion, including social and emotional learning, anti-bullying and conflict management.

Siân became a freelance educational adviser, facilitator and trainer in 2010. Since then she has worked both in the UK and internationally with a variety of organisations to promote inclusion. In the UK these include: the University of Cumbria where she is a visiting lecturer; Learning Away, a UK programme focussed on ensuring equitable access to quality school residentials; the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain; the London Philharmonic Orchestra; and a wide range of schools developing the use of restorative practice as part of their inclusive culture. She is also an experienced community mediator and restorative justice conference facilitator, skilled in working with both young people and adults to resolve conflict and repair relationships.

Internationally, Siân has worked extensively for the British Council in Malawi - where she lived between 2013-16 - on the Connecting Classrooms programme. Over the last three years she has trained over 500 school leaders and teachers both in Malawi and Zambia, specialising increasingly in inclusion. Malawi was one of the first countries to introduce the Connecting Classrooms Inclusive Pedagogies module and Siân was instrumental in making this happen, working in partnership with the Ministry of Education to place it strategically within the country’s new inclusion strategy, and facilitating the course itself. She recently returned to Malawi to facilitate a further Inclusive Pedagogies course and lead planning for the next phase of Ministry of Education-British Council partnership inclusion work.

Over the past nine months, Siân’s role as an education and leadership consultant for the British Council has taken her to Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Latvia and Poland, working with policy makers, academics, school leaders and teachers to promote inclusion and quality inclusive practice. Her keynote speeches have been described as inspirational and she is known for her high quality, hands-on workshops that give people practical experience of inclusive classroom practice. She relishes sharing her passion and commitment for inclusion with others at the same time as learning about inclusive practice around the world.