How I’m Memorising Ministers

Failure to plan is planning to fail. So here are three things that I have done in preparation for the education world forum next week. Number one, so I have the opportunity crazily to have a 10-minute conversation with the education secretary of the UK. Can you believe it? And the interview has a very specific scope, one that I am less familiar with. And I am so conscious as someone coming into these spaces. Of course, I don't know everything, right? And I don't want to have a ticket to these events unless I'm actually representing the voices of the majority, the voice of the people on the ground. And so I had eight hours to prepare a set of questions to submit so that all the education secretaries people could review it. I spoke to representatives from the Fair Education Alliance, the Disabled Children's Partnership, just any organization that is relevant and thinking about the consultation. I'm part of a network of campaigners of educators on the ground and I essentially just ask all these people, what do you want me to say in this interview? I have a very narrow scope. I don't have a lot of time, but what do you want me to say? So that was stressful to submit our questions, but we just got them in time. Number two, I have been trying to memorize the faces and names of as many world education ministers as possible. Printed a big set of documents. I've been testing myself. Study tuber to the core. That is what networking is, guys. It's going into a room and having an awareness of people's policies. Realistically, if I want to go up to Minister Lee and talk to him about Singaporean policies, I need to know my And thirdly, I don't know if I'm going to have the chance to give this to the person that I want to give it to, but I had the chance to meet climate minister Katy White a few months ago, and since then have been involved in a network of headteers and educators and people across the climate space about the new curriculum review and climate education. And there is an open letter that I would love to hand to a minister, but I don't know if I'm going to be able to. I thought printing it would give me a higher chance. Understandably, there's a lot of formal processes around these things. So, don't know how I'm going to be able to do that, but a girl's got to try. And otherwise, I'm just washing my suits, prepping my equipment, visualizing it all going well. And I can't wait. A massive invite only conference about all the things I care about. And I want to do students and educators and all the people struggling in the current education system justice.