ASCL Digital and AI Leadership Conference

Canva Offices, The Bersey Warehouse, London

Strategy, practice and impact

A day-long conference for school and college leaders who want to move beyond the hype.

Whether you are thinking about how to build an AI strategy across your trust, how to embed digital systems in your school, how AI can support students with SEND, or whether AI can genuinely democratise education, this conference will give you real answers from leaders who are doing the work now.

Our speakers bring direct, hands-on experience. They have introduced AI into their schools carefully and honestly, tested what it can do, and are ready to share what they found, including whether it was worth it.

Sessions

  • Digital Strategy and Infrastructure: the standards, cyber security and governance that need to be in place before AI can work, including what changes when you're leading across a trust rather than a single school.
  • AI in practice: teaching, learning and inclusion: how AI can support students with SEND, what AI marking looks like in practice, and whether AI can genuinely democratise education.
  • AI in the Classroom: trial, error and the truth: the day concludes with a chaired panel discussion where our speakers reflect honestly on their own experience and answer the question every leader in the room will be thinking 'was it worth it'? 

Why is it needed? 
AI is no longer a future consideration for schools and colleges; it is already shaping teaching, workload and infrastructure decisions. Yet most of what leaders hear is either hype or fear. This conference replaces both with evidence, from leaders who have introduced AI carefully, tested it honestly, and are willing to say what worked and what didn't. 

This conference is kindly sponsored by Canva. Places are limited. 
Speaker
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Rob Robson

ASCL Trust Leadership Consultant

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Madeleine Champagnie

Innovation Lead and Head of English, Thames Christian School

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Garret Fay

CEO, Insignis Academy Trust

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James Browning

Chief Operating Officer, Lift Schools

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Heba Al-Jayoosi

Assistant Head (Inclusion), Mayflower Primary School

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ASCL reserves the right to amend the programme should circumstances dictate.
 

08:45       Registration, refreshments and exhibition  
         
        Part one – Digital Strategy and Infrastructure: What has to be in place before AI works?
09:10       Welcome and framing the day 
Jade Parkinson-Hill, UK Education Community Manager, Canva 
         
09:40       Human-centred school leadership in the age of AI
Rob Robson, ASCL Consultant 
         
09:55       Standards, Cyber Security and DfE Digital Policy
Speaker tbc
         
10:20       Signposting to support
Bitesize introductions to the support offered by the exhibitors
         
10:25       Refreshments and exhibition 
         
10:45       Implementing and leading on AI strategy across a trust 
Garret Fay, CEO, Insignis Academy Trust 

Governance and strategy at trust level: what changes when AI has to work across many schools, not just one 

         
11:15       Building a bespoke and digital and AI system in a school
Alice King, Headteacher, Beauchamp College

The bridge from strategy to practice: what it actually takes to build and embed a system on the ground 
         
11:50       Lunch and exhibition 
         
        Part two – AI in Practice: Teaching, Learning and Inclusion
12:35       Supporting students with SEND with Reading
Heba Al-Jayoosi, Assistant Head (Inclusion), Mayflower Primary School

What AI looks like when applied to one specific, high stakes, area of practice 
         
13:05       The headlines say AI can mark – here’s what checking it actually looks like
Emma Espin, Digital Innovation Lead, ARK Academies

Testing the hype against the evidence in one everyday teacher task 
         
13:35       Can AI really democratise education?
Speaker tbc
         
14:05       Panel – AI in the classroom: for teachers or students?
Panellists include: Madeleine Champagnie, Innovation Lead and Head of English, Thames Christian School and Lex Lang, Deputy Head, Innovation and Partnerships, Caterham Prep School

Closes the day by testing the claims made across both halves - strategy and practice - against a live, chaired debate
         
14:55       Closing remarks and networking opportunity

ASCL members: £290 + VAT
Non-members: £310 + VAT

Additional delegates
£225 + VAT per person

You'll leave with practical insight into how digital and AI strategy works at both trust and school level, and honest evidence on where AI genuinely helps - and where it doesn't - in teaching, learning and inclusion. That's a stronger basis for decisions you'll otherwise be making on instinct or sales pitches.

Headteachers and senior leaders, trust CEOs and trust-level leads, digital strategy and innovation leads, and inclusion/SEND leaders wanting to understand AI's real potential and limits in their area.

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