The Siddiqui Summary Newsletter March 2025

Hi Everyone,

It’s been another busy month and therefore another jam-packed newsletter summarising the work I’ve been doing across education throughout March. However, when you do a deep dive, you’ll no doubt question whether you can even call what I’m doing work. I’ve had a jam packed month of networking, thought provoking conversations and celebration. I’m super lucky to work within this space and be able to learn and be inspired by absolute pros. I hope the stories and links I share benefit others within education, if it’s of value please do share with others in your network.

Also, a quick reminder, to get more frequent news on the work I'm doing, get links to resources for schools and find out a bit more about the wider Siddiqui family, please do subscribe to my email newsletter.

A Strong Start

A big thank you to the MAT Partnership Network (MATPN) for inviting me to speak at their MATPN North event. It was an enjoyable experience to share the stage with so many passionate speakers and have the chance to have thought provoking conversations throughout the day.

It was a real pleasure to meet Amjad Ali in person for the first time. His work is truly impactful. Thank you to Jackson Ogunyemi for being so generous with his time and wisdom, and to Katie Cavill for making the connection. A special shout out to Jitendra Jani for taking the time to share his thoughts on mine and other speakers at the event. I love how Jitendra is summarising his findings in to bitesize chunks.

The Cyber Explorers Cup

As I write this, I've just come back from Maidstone after delivering an in person Cyber event on behalf of the Cyber Explorers team. It was a great chance to reconnect with Nick Paul de Jong and the CE team. I also met some new cyber professionals Nikki Prince and Simon Stanley who are doing very exciting and impactful work with BAE Systems Digital Intelligence. This month saw me work with several schools, raising awareness around careers in Cyber Security and announcing the second year of the Cyber World Cup. I'm always honoured to support QA Ltd and Department for Science, Innovation and Technology on sharing a spotlight on this vital profession.

Speaking of Careers

One of my busiest weeks of the year is always National Careers Week. I had a lovely day working with forty entrepreneurial, creative students on my Let's Pitch It workshop. It was such a fun filled day seeing year nines work in teams to create and promote concepts for new television shows. The project based environment is always turned up a notch at Wildern, as the digital strategy is so thoroughly embedded. Google Classrooms and Canva were used for the teams to bring their concepts to life in a short sharp workshop.

Let's Thrive

For those of you who have recently connected with me, you may not know that Let's Pitch It was the first workshop I created over seven years ago. Due to the support of amazing schools such as Wildern, as well as trusts and educators who have supported me a long the way (always grateful Kathy Hardy, Wayne Norrie, Matt Crawford and Tom Campbell) , I'm so excited to share a wider offer of support through my Let's Thrive Programme. It's early days, but the conversations I'm having with schools, trust leads and future sponsors makes me certain that something of value and much needed is in the pipeline. I'm so excited to bring this vision to life. A huge thank you to all the people within my network who have supported initial discussions. Watch this space...

Books on the Box on Tour

A few weeks ago I announced that Ramsay Melhuish and I would be flying the Pickatale - read, listen and learn! flag and be delivering some exciting in person workshops to five primary schools. We called it Books on the Box on Tour and I'm very excited to say we will be visiting a number of schools in the summer term and working with some fab trusts including the wonderful LEO Academy Trust and Affinity Learning Partnership. Books on the Box gives us the chance to educate primary children on ethical use of AI, instil a love of literacy and celebrate digital skills. As you can imagine the session is busy, but SO much fun.

A Month of Connections and Development

I often find myself travelling up and down the country and I occasionally go abroad for my work, so, it was nice to stay local on a few events and get in some much needed learning within Derby. A big thanks to Rob Twells for inviting me to his 301 Live marketing event. There I got to hear from and connect with Mark Saxby who is doing some very important work in educating young people on effective use of social media through Positive Social. With all the news around Adolescence, it was a very timely connection as was coming across a sobering Tes article by Thomas Michael, sharing information on 'the manosphere'. Find out more here.

The other local event I was able to attend was the L.E.A.D. IT Services organised M.E.E.T event. It was the most enjoyable opportunity to develop my knowledge of PedTech from the always inspiring Dr Fiona Aubrey-Smith as well as gaining a thorough idea of the work Lift Schools are doing with their digital and AI strategy. Big thanks to Richard Sparks for giving the space for a deep discussion around best practice. You can read more about the event here and once again, thank you Lee Jepson for the invite. I look forward to connecting with you and hopefully Bobby Thandi in the near future.

A Big Focus on Wellbeing and Announcing a Very Special Competition

Anyone who works within education will know the huge focus and importance around supporting wellbeing. It is one of the main reasons that my wife Mel and I are running the London Marathon and raising money for Mind. You can read both mine and Melissa Siddiqui why here.

Some of you may have noticed my post encouraging educators to read the 2024 Howdens Pupil Wellbeing report. The report highlighted in detail the current challenges young people are facing due to the rise in cost of living and the struggle to find a balance between work and study.

As well as this, I'm so excited to share that I've been asked to be a judge for Howden's Education teams Pupils Wellbeing Prize competition. This exciting competition allows schools across the UK to win up to £10,000 to support their young peoples mental health and wellbeing. The deadline for entries is the 18th of July and I really hope my education community make the most of this opportunity.

It was an incredible experience to announce the competition at a very special event. I was invited to the Howden Rosslyn Park National Schools Sevens which was inspiring in itself, however after announcing the competition with Jo Taylor, I got to meet and hear from Rugby royalty Jason Robinson, whose passion for making a difference extends far beyond the field. Jason was as humble as he was generous with his time, he truly leads by example. I also had the chance to meet and talk all things education with Carl S Bailey and Charlotte Cargen. Thank you to both of you for your insights and the brilliant things you are doing to motivate young people through some really challenging times.

Happy Easter

So, there you have it. If you managed to read all the way to the end, I wanted to make sure I wish you a happy Easter and a restful time with friends, family and a chocolate egg or two. When I post next months Siddiqui Summary, Mel and I will have ran the London Marathon. I'm hoping it won't impact my typing! Thank you again for all your support and encouragement. Please do offer your thoughts on making the newsletter of value to you and your community.