Hywel has been a teacher for over twenty-five years. His reputation has grown hugely since he stepped out of the full-time classroom. He has found an incredible and innovative niche in the world of model teaching contributing to and advising curriculum designers and innovators from Barnsley to Brussels, from Cairo to Cleethorpes. Hywel is as at home in front of hundreds of Headteachers on the conference circuit as he is when working with EAL children on the carpets of their classrooms. Hywel contributes to the national conversation around education at school and university level. He is an experienced teacher in Special, Primary and Secondary settings, nationally and internationally. He is also a well- respected author and contributes regularly to a variety of publications.
Hywel leads the PGCE programme in Secondary Drama at Huddersfield University and contributes to the Masters programme in Drama and Creative Writing at Leeds Beckett University. He also contributes to University Education programmes in Sheffield, Liverpool, Durham and Wolverhampton.
Hywel still works with children, keeping his insight fresh, current and useful. His work deals with curriculum liberation, creative practice, engagement, leadership, literacy, teacher development, botheredness and imagineering – the liberation of the art of teaching. Hywel’s research into Pedagogy earned him a Masters distinction in Poverty and Education from Leeds Beckett University.
In addition to working in schools, Hywel is a regular contributor to conferences including The Sunday Telegraph Festival of Education, Northern Rocks, Practical Pedagogies, and The Scottish Learning Festival. He is in demand as a conference keynote speaker working alongside colleagues such as Mick Waters, Karen Ardley, The Real David Cameron and Estelle Morris. Hywel is an associate of Ian Gilbert’s Independent Thinking Ltd, an organisation he is very passionate about.
Hywel has recently worked for the National Galleries in Edinburgh, The Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield and the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds as a visiting teacher. Hywel has contributed fiction to The Shannon Trust’s prison-based literacy scheme that has launched its own mini-franchise.
His award-winning book ‘Oops! Getting Children to Learn Accidentally’ is published by Crown House Publishing and has proved very popular with educators around the world featuring on the reading list of many university teacher training courses. His book ‘Uncharted Territories’ is written with Dr Debra Kidd and was published in 2018. He writes a regular column for the TES about his encounters as a ‘travelling teacher’. Hywel is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
He was recently described as ‘..a world leader in enthusiasm’.