Sammy Wright

Educator/Teacher, Parent, Writer/Editor

I am a teacher, first and foremost. I studied literature at Oxford, then taught in the Solukhumbu region of Nepal for nine months, where I decided on a career in education. Literature is still a passion, and I write a lot in my spare time, publishing short stories and working on a novel. I've been lucky to have some sucess with stories recently - I've been long-listed for the Sunday Times EFG short story prize, and won the Tom-Gallon Award from the Society of Authors - but teaching is where my long term interests lie. Over the last thirteen years I've worked in three secondary schools: William Ellis in the borough of Camden, Fortismere in Haringey, and now Southmoor Academy in Sunderland. The first two showed me very different sides of London - William Ellis is a boys school in a central location with high rates of deprivation, whereas Fortismere is a very academically successful and more suburban environment. My current post at Southmoor is by some way the most exciting opportunity I've had in my professional life. My role as Director of the new Sixth Form means I've had the chance to design a Sixth Form from the ground up, building systems and structures to promote academic achievement and independence, and to encourage students to believe they can aspire to succeed in the most competitive careers and universities. But most importantly, it gives me a platform to try to broaden horizons - to introduce new ideas and new approaches to the world to the students - and that is why we're holding a TEDx conference.

Literature, film, art, and providing fair and equal access to the best education

We have to change our priorities in education, and our language. The structures we are given by government and the exam boards reward outcomes, but all the research indicates that attention to process is a far more effective way of encouraging long term learning. Rather than testing knowledge or skills at the end of a process, why don't we test the way in which students acquire that knowledge. How independent were they? How did they develop strategies to acquire knowledge? Did their process work?

education, Film, Literature

Sculpture, in wood and in clay.