Thursday, 22nd January 2026

University of Hertfordshire, Fielder Centre, Hatfield

in partnership with the University of Hertfordshire

Kat Howard | Motivation for Change: supporting teachers and leaders

Kat is an Executive Director of School Improvement at a Multi Academy Trust in the West Midlands. In previous roles, Kat was Director of a Teaching School Hub and Head of Professional Learning across over 200 rural and coastal schools in Lincolnshire, and prior to this, was a senior leader in a Single Academy Trust. Kat is a Trustee for Education Support, Member of the Council at the Chartered College of Teaching and the founding CEO of Litdrive, a charity supporting English teachers with professional development. Kat holds a Master’s in Expert Teaching, NPQEL and is a Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching. She has published work on the topics of curriculum development, teacher workload and system- level change management and implementation in education including bestsellers ‘Stop Talking About Wellbeing’ and ‘Symbiosis: the curriculum and the classroom.’

Working in a sector where evolution is at the forefront of school improvement can be challenging for leaders and teachers to navigate, and yet, without change, stasis becomes the energy of evolution of the outcomes and experiences of young people. When managed effectively, change can become the innovative and inspiring driving force behind professional fulfilment for all stakeholders.

In this keynote, Kat talks through her experiences of managing change when working in the private sector, becoming a teacher and later in school and system leadership, how she supports others to feel motivated and empowered by change to ensure the very best for them and the schools and communities that they serve.

On conference day you will meet colleagues from Prospero’s Children’s Educational Services (CES) — a team that delivers highly bespoke, specialist education programmes for children and young people, both attending and not attending full-time education. These programmes are delivered on a 1:1 basis, ensuring that every learner’s individual educational needs are met for an agreed number of hours each week.

You will also meet members of the Prospero Learning team. Prospero Learning offers self-paced online training courses for those working in schools, covering a broad range of statutory and professional learning topics from its continually expanding course catalogue. All courses are written by education experts and accredited by CPDUK. Prospero Learning encourages schools to move away from costly annual subscription models — guaranteeing to be 25% cheaper per annum than any school’s current provider.

Workshop 2 Choices

Panel discussions – all delegates will be able to choose one panel discussion