A Tale of Two Cities (in Derby!)

I was asked to created some drawings for the Derby School Inclusion conference that happened back in June. Unfortunately, whilst all the schools have signed up to the Inclusion Charter, the number of annual exclusions is still rising. 

This story plus some acted out theatre sketches were used to illustrate different behavioural approaches to difficult situations at school. Hats off to all the teachers out there - it's a really hard job!

Thanks to Jo Wilkinson at the Derby County Community Trust's Inclusion Partnership for asking me back! https://inclusionpartnership.co.uk/

Derby Inclusion Conference 2026

 My 4th visit to this lovely day of celebration and sharing good ideas all about 'Inclusion' for the teaching community in Derby. This is a large paper mural, 3 metres wide and 1 metre tall.

Please click on the image to enlarge!

Discovery Trust - Schools in Leicester

Had a wonderful day last week working for the Discovery Trust up in Leicester. https://discoverytrust.org/

Some really great speakers, kicked off with Tier Blundell https://tierblundell.com/ who is passionate about keeping children in education. His experience of being excluded from school at a young age has led him on a journey from leaving school with no qualifications, to now studying for a doctorate at Oxford University. Quite incredible.

Craftivism and Chat in Merton plus portraits of members of Merton CIL

A recent poster for Merton Centre for Independent Living (CIL), a charity run by and for Disabled people.

Craftivism is a combination of the words ‘craft’ and ‘activism’. 

By taking part people feel included and empowered and it builds community. Plus, it’s fun!

I worked from a sketch that was created by the client, to echo a similar piece of work I did for Merton CIL to celebrate their 10 year anniversary:

An inspiring group of really great people, helping each other and the wider community in Southwest London. Merton is the borough where Wimbledon takes place and is a very diverse borough.

As well as this poster I also drew these portraits of participants:

Open University Research into Ageing Well in the Bangladeshi community in East London

On Saturday I was asked back by Dr Manik Deepak-Gopinath from the Open University to live scribe at this celebration and reflection event in London at the end of this 3 year project.

The hope is that this thorough research and findings will accelerate policy change at the highest level.

An emotional day, still so much work to be done, so this is just the beginning.

This research project was a big collaboration between the Open University and several other stakeholders, for more information and to read the final report click here:

https://www.housinglin.org.uk/Topics/browse/HousingOlderPeople/DiversityMatters/amar-bari-amar-jibon/

And a snap of the original in situ, it measures 2.25m x 1m:

Cafcass 25 year celebration

This year Cafcass is 25 - lots has changed in this time, mostly for the better for children and hopefully this will continue, even as the pressure on this service continues to build.

I listened to this event as a recording and had time to think, reflect and draw. 

Not the usual mad scramble of live drawing, and I much prefer it!

Below is the full banner image with excerpts underneath. The contributions by the FJYPB https://www.cafcass.gov.uk/children-and-young-people/family-justice-young-peoples-board are my favourite and very much inform what I draw. My aim is to constantly put children and young people at the heart of these images, because their futures are dictated by the process of the family court.

University College London (UCL) Illustrating a Grand Challenges research project

This research project is a development from the previous one, Cultural Understanding:

The changing world and a lot more turbulence in the world calls for more understanding of each other both internally within the university and externally. A big 5 year project - this was a scoping exercise to advise the new provost on the direction staff and students think it should travel. 

I was given notes post-event to work from but the event itself was a morning of guided discussion.