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UK
Educational leader and entrepreneur with a passion in transforming research into strategies that work in classrooms
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About James
Keynote
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Keynote speaker James Nottingham began his working life as a teaching assistant in a school for deaf children. He later trained to become a teacher and went on to become a leader in schools in the UK. After appearing in a BBC documentary about Philosophy for Children (P4C) in 1999, James Nottingham was invited to support other schools in the development of P4C, thinking skills, and challenge.
Always inspiring, the top-notch speaker James Nottingham went on to create a multi-million pound project designed to help raise the aspirations and achievements of young people in North East England – a project which resulted in new pedagogies that are still being used today. In 2005, he started JN Partnership Ltd., which would later develop into Challenging Learning, a leading educational company which he is director of. Based in the UK, Denmark, Sweden, Australia, and the United States, Challenging Learning seeks to transform the most up-to-date research into strategies that really work in the classroom.
James Nottingham’s first book, Challenging Learning, is published in five languages, and has received widespread critical acclaim. His follow-up book, Encouraging Learning, supports his work with parents and community groups, as well as with teachers and leaders. Currently he is writing a series of books to share the best strategies for feedback, challenge, dialogue, progress, and meta-cognition.
Particularly well known in Scandinavia, Australia, and the UK, our speaker James Nottingham is recognized for his humor and clarity, as well as his distinct ability to turn research into comprehensible practice. For this reason, the widely-acclaimed speaker James Nottingham has been described by Skolvärlden (the Swedish Teaching Union) as “one of the most sought-after names in the world of school development.”
In 2009, he was listed among the Future 500 – a “definitive list of the UK’s most forward-thinking and brightest innovators”, and with good reason. Nottingham’s courage to challenge established educational norms and practices has contributed to the field with new and highly effective ways of teaching and learning, inspiring teachers, leaders and pedagogues to reflect and take action.
See keynotes with James NottinghamIt is through a challenge that we are able to move students out of their comfort zone and into their learning zone (or zone of proximal development) And yet, so many students actively avoid challenges for fear of getting something wrong, falling behind, or simply because they don’t see the point in putting any effort in.
Added to this is the need for differentiation to ensure all students are challenged appropriately – not so much that they can’t access the learning and not so little that they end up repeating things they already know how to do.
Developing the leadership and coaching skills of all staff is vital for building capacity, these skills and their supporting attitudes can play a dramatic role in the success of student learning. As Viviane Robinson (2007) showed from her meta-analyses when staff focus on five leadership dimensions then student learning (both academic and ‘non-academic’) is enhanced. These are: providing ‘big picture’ goals of learning; aligning towards these goals; learning how to learn together; engaging in analysis; and selecting/developing the ‘tools’ needed to reach the holistic goals.
Audience takeaways:
Philosophy for Children (P4C) develops critical, creative, caring and collaborative thinking. It is practiced in over 60 countries around the world and has a history stretching back over 40 years. The underlying principle is for children and young people to experience rational and reasonable dialogue about things that matter to them and their teachers. All participants work together in a Community of Inquiry.
The aim for each participant is to become clearer, more accurate, less self-contradictory and more aware of other arguments and values before reaching a conclusion.
Audience takeaways:
The alternative is much more engaging and, despite assumptions to the contrary, can also lead to improved grades for all concerned: a learning-orientation. With its focus on progress, a learning-orientation can help all students (and staff) to thrive. No matter the starting point, the emphasis becomes outperforming yourself rather than outperforming others. Pleasure (and, if needed, praise) comes from the love of learning rather than the love of beating others. This, in turn, leads to improved grades for everyone because when everyone beats their personal best, then ‘real-life’ grades are improved for all.
Audience takeaways:
Many people use the SOLO Taxonomy to describe a learner’s progress from surface-level knowledge through to a deep, contextual understanding.
SOLO stands for the Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes. It is a model first proposed by John Biggs and Kevin Collis (1982) in Evaluating the Quality of Learning: The SOLO Taxonomy. It has strong parallels with James Nottingham’s Learning Pit® and can help guide the feedback process.
Audience takeaways:
The Visible Learning® database was built by John Hattie. It represents Hattie’s synthesis of more than 1600 meta-analyses, covering 95,000 studies and 300 million students. This makes it the world’s largest evidence base on what works best in schools to improve student learning. From that research, Hattie has identified more than 250 factors that have an impact on student achievement.
Hattie’s synthesis shows that when staff use strategies with higher effects (greater than an effect size of 0.4), there is an increased likelihood that student learning will accelerate. Thus, the effectiveness of Visible Learning® comes from helping leaders and teachers make strategic decisions about how best to use their time, energy, and resources to maximize impact.
Audience takeaways:
I attended the Mindset congress because of James Nottingham and wow, I was blown away. I enjoyed his presentations so much! I shared his ideas with my secondary school colleagues and they were so enthusiastic.
Monica Blankestijn
Your keynote was the perfect! Feedback from delegates identified your inspirational and thought-provoking keynote as the highlight of the day. I am sure the impact will be felt across our schools and nurseries for years to come.
I thought it was an inspiring lecture by James Nottingham. I wish everyone in education could hear these important messages.
Alexandra Sundelin
Thank you so much for a fantastic Keynote speech at our conference yesterday, it was the perfect way to start a conference titled #BeInspired. The feedback from delegates has been fantastic and so many forms refer to your inspirational speech and workshop.
Kylie Spark
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