I'm delighted to be a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (an award granted to "individuals judged to have made outstanding achievements to social progress and development) and to be included in the 'Future 500' (a "definitive list of the UK’s most forward thinking and creative innovators").In 2003, I created the The Learning Pit® as a way to encourage students to step out of their comfort zone. I have since developed the model into a 4-step framework for deepening & engaging learning. I am astonished (& delighted) with how popular my model has become - indeed, do a search online for #LearningPit, & you will get 220m+ hits. Before all this, I was a very reticent scholar. In fact, I hated school, considering it to be a cruel, outdated and generally irrelevant experience. That’s why I became a teacher – in the hope that I could make it more interesting for the next generation (that & the fact I’d found pig farming & working in the chemical industry even worse than school) So after a short time as a teaching assistant in a school for deaf children, I spent many happy years as a teacher & leader in primary & secondary schools in the UK. In 2006, I founded Challenging Learning with Jill Potter (now Jill Nottingham!) Since then, we have established this company in 6 countries - the UK, Australia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and the USA and now employ 30 consultants, researchers, designers and admin staff in those countries. Our team’s main activities include the Challenging Learning Process (a long-term partnership that has been independently shown to enhance student learning and professional development); in-school consultancy; keynotes; and teaching resources. As well as keynoting national & international conferences myself, I also regularly tour with researchers such as Professors Carol Dweck (Growth Mindset) and John Hattie (Visible Learning).