Phil Beadle

Phil Beadle has been described as ‘The country’s most inspirational teacher’ (The Times) and ‘An emerging national hero’ (The Observer). He spent a decade working in one of the toughest schools in the toughest part of London’s east End, producing results from his students which were little short of miraculous. In 2002 his GCSE literature class all gained A grades.

He was awarded London Secondary School Teacher of the Year in 2004, going on to win the National title.

He is the only teacher ever to have a regular column in a national newspaper, producing laugh out loud articles for The Guardian, which take a barbed look at youth, education and government policy. He has also written leaders on government policy for the same newspaper, being held in sufficiently high regard as a journalist to have been asked to substitute for the great Ted Wragg: a position Phil describes as ‘like sending on an Accrington Stanley reserve for Ronaldinho.”

Beadle appeared in the Channel 4 series The Unteachables, where he took a group of challenging children and, somehow, achieved the impossible, getting them to re-engage with education. The Guardian said of him, ‘He looks and talks like Dirty Den, and he’s a genius’, and he won an award for on screen talent from the Royal Society of Television. He wrote and presented a 30 Minutes Piece for Channel 4 attacking Private Schooling, has appeared on Newsnight, The Politics Show, The Heaven & Earth Show, Richard & Judy and This Morning.

His book Could Do Better is the fastest selling educational advice book of all time, and he has just finished filming a major documentary series for Channel 4 on adult literacy.

As a speaker, he brings field expertise in how to motivate and engage some of the most challenging kids in the country; he is controversial, exciting, passionate and very, very funny.