Keynote Talks

Attention Hijacked: Helping Students to Focus in the Age of Digital Distraction

Smartphones have transformed children, young people and classrooms. What began as a tool for connection has become what many experts call the largest uncontrolled experiment ever performed on our children. Students now live in a constant state of distraction, “forever elsewhere,” pulled away by infinite scroll, likes, and notifications. The result? Diminished focus, less sleep, and reduced opportunities for the very activities that build learning and wellbeing.

In this keynote, Jon cuts through the noise to reveal how children’s attention has been systematically hijacked - not by accident, but by design. Drawing on over 25 years of teaching and leadership experience, international research and the work of Johann Hari (Stolen Focus) and Jonathan Haidt (The Anxious Generation), he explains why adolescent attention has declined so sharply since the arrival of modern smartphones, and why it is critical for educators to understand what is happening beyond the classroom walls.

Rather than offering simple fixes or entering the debate over phone bans, Jon equips teachers and leaders with a clearer picture of the digital environment their students inhabit at home. He shares insights that can help schools and colleges open constructive conversations with parents, supporting them to navigate their children’s screen use and better protect time for study, sleep, and family life.

Delegates will gain:

• A deeper understanding of the mechanisms that capture and fragment young people’s attention.

• Awareness of the opportunity costs of screen use on learning, rest, and relationships.

• Confidence to engage parents in dialogue about supporting children in a digital-first world.

Provocative, evidence-based, and solution-focused, this talk empowers educators to move beyond classroom management and to work in partnership with families as children grow up in the age of distraction.

Audience: Teachers, school leaders, educational professionals, teacher training providers, publishers, industry suppliers and parents. Adaptable content tailored for educator or parent/community audiences. Suitable for audiences focused on secondary, post 16 and higher education.

Beyond the Classroom: Building Better Study Habits at Home

For years, schools have shouldered the responsibility for student achievement. But the truth is, learning doesn’t stop when the school bell rings. Research shows that the home study environment is critical — yet most parents don’t know the science of effective learning, or how to create the right conditions for their child to thrive independently away from the classroom.

In this keynote, Jon shows educators how they can help parents support their children more effectively. Drawing on his new book A Parent’s Guide to Effective Study Habits (DK, 2025), Jon explains why great teaching in the classroom is not enough, and why families need simple, research-backed strategies to build effective and sustained study habits at home.

Rather than overloading parents with content knowledge, Jon demonstrates that what matters most are the conditions: minimising distraction, using proven study techniques, and supporting motivation without turning learning into punishment.

Delegates will learn:

• Why parent involvement at home is a critical but often overlooked factor in student success.

• Key study strategies schools can promote to families, based on research and cognitive science.

• Practical ways to help parents build positive, sustainable study habits with their children.

This keynote equips teachers, leaders, and education partners to strengthen the home–school learning partnership, ensuring that great teaching is reinforced — not undone — once students leave the classroom.

Audience: Teachers, school leaders, educational professionals, publishers, industry suppliers and parents. Adaptable content tailored for educator or parent/community audiences. Suitable for audiences focused on secondary, post 16 and higher education.

Recharge to Remember: How Sleep Powers Students’ Memory and Learning

This keynote reframes sleep from being “downtime” to being a vital, active process in learning and memory. While most school and college conversations focus on teaching strategies and curriculum, this talk shines a light on one of the most overlooked drivers of student achievement: sleep.

Drawing on the work of Matthew Walker (Why We Sleep) and Jonathan Haidt (The Anxious Generation), Jon Tait unpacks how:

• Sleep before learning clears and resets the brain’s memory systems, making space for new knowledge.

• Sleep after learning consolidates memories, protecting them from being lost.

• REM sleep supports problem-solving and creativity — skills at the heart of modern education.

Jon also explores the modern crisis of sleep deprivation, particularly among adolescents, whose biology is colliding with a culture of constant smartphone use. Students are sleeping less, sleeping later, and sleeping worse — with a measurable impact on their concentration, recall, and classroom performance.

For educators and school leaders, the implications are profound. If schools are serious about raising achievement, supporting behaviour, and improving wellbeing, then sleep must become part of the conversation.

Delegates will learn:

• A clear understanding of the science linking sleep and learning.

• Insight into the impact of sleep deprivation on their students.

• Practical approaches for raising awareness with pupils and parents.

This is not about adding another initiative to school and college workloads - it’s about equipping educators with the knowledge to educate families on one of the simplest, most cost-effective, and most powerful levers for student success.

Audience: Teachers, school leaders, educational professionals, teacher training providers, publishers, industry suppliers and parents. Adaptable content tailored for educator or parent/community audiences. Suitable for audiences focused on primary, secondary, post 16 and higher education.

The Science of Learning: Principles for Effective Curriculum and Assessment Design

Too often, education focuses on short-term performance: the immediate results of a lesson, task, or assessment. Yet real learning is different — it is a lasting change in long-term memory. Understanding this distinction is critical for curriculum designers, school and college leaders, and teachers who want their students to retain knowledge, apply skills, and succeed over time.

In this keynote, Jon Tait, author of Teaching Rebooted, explores the science of learning and its implications for curriculum design. Drawing on evidence from cognitive science, Jon covers the key principles that underpin effective learning:

• Memory and retrieval — why recalling information strengthens learning more than re-studying it.

• Sequencing, spacing, and interleaving — why intelligent planning produces long-term retention, even if students initially prefer “blocking.”

• Learning versus performance — why visible fluency can be misleading, and how to assess true knowledge.

Jon demonstrates how curriculum and lesson design can leverage these principles, including cumulative assessment, desirable difficulty, and structured interleaving. He also challenges common assumptions, helping educators question whether current assessments are actually measuring long-term learning.

Delegates will gain:

• Evidence-based strategies to improve curriculum planning and lesson sequencing.

• Insights into designing assessments that genuinely reflect durable learning.

• Practical examples of applying cognitive science principles in everyday teaching.

Provocative, research-informed, and immediately practical, this keynote equips educators to rethink curriculum design, assessment, and teaching strategies to maximize lasting learning.

Audience: Teachers, school leaders, educational professionals, teacher training providers, publishers and industry suppliers. Content can be adapted and tailored for curriculum design, classroom teaching, or product development. Suitable for audiences focused on primary, secondary, post 16 and higher education.

Poverty Proofing the Curriculum: Levelling the Playing Field for All Learners

For many schools and colleges, closing the achievement gap remains one of the most stubborn challenges in education. Despite increased funding for Pupil Premium - from £600m in 2012 to £2.6bn in 2023 - research shows that the disadvantaged gap has barely shifted, and at current trends, could take decades to close.

In this keynote, Jon challenges delegates to view the curriculum through the lens of disadvantaged students. He explores the impact of cultural capital, home environment, and parental engagement, highlighting why the same lesson can yield vastly different outcomes for students from different backgrounds. Using statistics from the Education Policy Institute, real-life examples, and his experience as an education leader, Jon demonstrates why curriculum design, teaching strategies, and home-school partnership are all crucial in unlocking potential.

Delegates will gain:

• A deeper understanding of the systemic and cultural barriers facing disadvantaged students.

• Practical ways to adapt curriculum, teaching, and school strategies to ensure all students can access learning.

• Insight into supporting parents to engage confidently with education at home.

• Inspiration to help students leverage their resilience and potential to achieve beyond expectation.

Provocative, research-informed, and solution-focused, this keynote equips educators and school leaders to rethink how they approach equity in the curriculum and unlock the “X-Factor” in every child.

Audience: Teachers, school leaders, educational professionals, publishers and industry suppliers. Content can be adapted and tailored for classroom practice, curriculum planning, or product/resource design. Suitable for audiences focused on primary, secondary, post 16 and higher education.

Raising the Bar: Creating a Culture of Challenge and Academic Rigour

Every classroom has its own culture — one that either invites comfort or demands challenge. In this keynote, Jon Tait explores how to move beyond mere engagement to create a culture where every student is expected to think deeply, work hard, and embrace academic struggle as a natural part of learning. True rigour isn’t about harder tasks or more content; it’s about setting the conditions in which effort, focus, and persistence become the norm.

Drawing on cognitive science and years of school leadership experience, Jon unpacks the habits and routines that build academic discipline — from eradicating “mental truancy” to mastering questioning, pacing, and productive periods of silent focus. He shows how teachers can make students comfortable with discomfort, helping them to develop the independence and resilience that drives high achievement.

Delegates will gain:

• A clear understanding of what academic rigour and challenge look like in practice

• Strategies to build classroom conditions that promote deep thinking and resilience

• Tools for eliminating “mental truancy” and ensuring all students are engaged

• Practical routines that increase pace, focus, and productive struggle

• Insights into creating a classroom culture where hard thinking is the expectation, not the exception

Audience: Teachers, school leaders, educational professionals and teacher training providers. Suitable for audiences focused on secondary, post 16 and higher education.

Thinking Hard: The Art of Effective Classroom Questioning

Questioning is one of the most frequently used teaching strategies, yet often one of the least effective. Too often, it becomes a tool for checking whether a handful of students know the answer, rather than a method to engage every learner in deep thought.

In this keynote, Jon reframes questioning as a driver of learning, not just assessment. He explores why memory is the residue of thought and why classroom “busyness” doesn’t always equate to thinking. To ensure students achieve durable learning, Jon shows how teachers can remove opportunities for “mental truancy” and instead create conditions of desirable difficulty that make students think harder, deeper, and longer.

Jon shares practical strategies including:

• Moving beyond hands-up questioning with hands-down and cold calling.

• Building in wait time and response scripts to give all students time to think.

• Using mini whiteboards effectively to engage the whole class and find out what every student is thinking.

• Leveraging multiple-choice questions to uncover misconceptions.

Delegates will gain:

• A deeper understanding of the purpose of questioning in promoting deep learning.

• Practical techniques to transform questioning into an inclusive, thought-provoking process.

• Insights into how deliberate practice can refine questioning skills until they become automated and precise.

This keynote is research-informed, classroom-tested, and designed to empower teachers and leaders with strategies that elevate questioning from a routine habit to a powerful tool for deep learning.

Audience: Teachers, school leaders, educational professionals, teacher training providers, publishers, industry suppliers. Suitable for audiences focused on primary, secondary, post 16 and higher education.

Habits of Excellence: The Power of Routines in Learning and Behaviour

Every effective classroom runs on well-rehearsed routines, yet their transformative potential is often overlooked. This keynote explores how establishing and automating strong classroom routines can transform teaching and learning by reducing cognitive load, building predictability, and freeing up mental space for thinking, creativity, and connection.

Drawing on cognitive science, behaviour theory, and classroom practice, Jon unpacks how routine and rehearsal create clarity, calm, and consistency for both teachers and students. He explores how habits are formed, why predictability reduces anxiety and distraction, and how automating the ‘how’ of learning allows everyone to focus on the ‘what’.

Delegates will leave with a clear understanding of how to explicitly teach, embed, and refine routines so that they become effortless habits — saving time, reducing stress, and maximising focus across every lesson.

Delegates will gain:

• Practical strategies for designing and embedding effective classroom routines

• Insights into how routines reduce cognitive load and free up working memory for learning

• Methods to explicitly teach and practise routines until they become automated habits

• Understanding of the link between practice, performance, and automation

Audience: Teachers, school leaders, educational professionals, teacher training providers, publishers, industry suppliers. Suitable for audiences focused on primary, secondary, post 16 and higher education.

Information Design for Learning: Designing Presentations to Maximise Focus and Attention

Classroom slides are powerful tools — but poorly designed slides can hinder learning, overload working memory, and distract students from the key message. This keynote explores the principles of learning design and how teachers can structure their presentations to maximise focus, engagement and retention.

Drawing on cognitive science, design principles, and practical classroom experience, Jon demonstrates strategies for creating slides that direct focus, declutter content and reduce cognitive load. Attendees will see why ‘less is more’ and how font choice, spacing, colour, alignment, visual cues, and dual coding can transform a simple presentation into a powerful learning tool.

Through before-and-after examples, practical tips, and actionable strategies, participants will leave equipped to design slides that enhance student engagement, reduce distractions, and maximise learning outcomes.

Delegates will gain:

• Practical strategies for designing slides that reduce cognitive load and improve focus.

• Techniques to guide student attention and support understanding using visuals, dual coding, and clear information design.

• Insights on decluttering content, limiting distractions, and ensuring slides complement teaching rather than compete with it.

• Actionable strategies for creating presentations that boost comprehension, retention, and engagement.

Audience: Teachers, school leaders, educational professionals, teacher training providers, publishers, industry suppliers. Suitable for audiences focused on primary, secondary, post 16 and higher education.