Workshop Leaders
Donal O Reilly
Post Primary Deputy Director, Centre for School Leadership
Donal is a graduate of the University of Limerick, IRELAND, with a B. Tech. Ed. He devoted much of his early career to developing teacher capacity through the Engineering Technology Teachers’ Association and Teacher Professional Networks.
Upon returning to his alma mater, the University of Limerick, he completed an MA in Education and developed an interest in action research. Donal has worked in seven different elementary schools over his career, across all sectors, sizes, and demographics. He is currently on secondment from Killorglin Community College where he served as Assistant Principal and Principal for a total of thirteen years.
Donal places great emphasis on fostering a culture for developing aspiring leaders within the school and building leadership capacity. During his time as principal, Donal has served on the staff of the Professional Development Service for Teachers, has been involved in the design and delivery of the Tánaiste program for newly appointed assistant principals, and has delivered modules for the PDST Tóraíocht program for aspiring leaders.
Donal was also a mentor for the National Association for Principals and Deputy Principals mentoring program for deputy principals. More recently, Donal earned a certificate in professional coaching practice and ethics and a diploma in life and leadership coaching in 2022. Donal has worked with European SchoolNet and the Future Classroom Lab in Brussels, delivering workshops and webinars. He also leads learning events for leaders and teachers across Europe and is a guest speaker at panel discussions. As an eTwinner and former eTwinning Ambassador, as well as through his involvement in the Erasmus+ program, Donal has built an extensive leadership network across Europe and has had the opportunity to explore the different leadership, mentoring, and coaching approaches in many European countries. He also closely supports the work of his National Agency, Léargas.
He is currently Deputy Director Post Primary at the Centre for School Leadership in IRELAND where he focuses on supporting school leaders at different stages of their leadership careers. As part of this work, Donal and his team have explored the many aspects of school leadership, leading to the development of pilot programs and an innovative reflective tool to support Irish school leaders.
Dr Loes van Wessum
Dr Loes van Wessum is a senior researcher of the research group Inclusive learning environments, Windesheim, University of Applied sciences, The Netherlands and a senior researcher for leadership and leadership development for ESHA. Her research focuses on leadership and leadership development for developing schools as learning and inclusive organisations.
Recently she has conducted research for revising the Dutch National standard for school leaders in secondary education and a Dutch survey about professional learning activities of school leaders and board members in secondary education. She is one of the coordinators of the Eapril Cloud Leadership in Education, bringing researchers on leadership in education together and giving presentations at the Eapril conferences and organizing in between conferences. She is the lead editor of a Dutch open access book for school leaders written by more then 20 top researchers on leadership in education and one of the authors of Van Wessum, L. & Verheggen (2019).
Leading a learning school. Which questions have you asked today? Oud-Turnhout: Gompel & Svacina. In her work she combines practical wisdom and theoretical knowledge. She is an experienced teacher, manager, teacher educator, researcher, member of the supervisory board, consultant and author.
Horgas Judit
Participants of the Microvet workshop will hear about the project results, the present and future of microcredentials and will be engaged in group conversations on how microcredentials could be most useful to them.
Judit Horgas – editor, literary historian and education consultant. She is the editor-in-chief of the Hungarian literary and ecological journal Liget (Grove). She has created and led the educational programme Dragonfly for elementary schools in Hungary and the neighbouring countries (Slovakia, Serbia, Slovenia, Romania, Ukraine) for 15 years. Focusing on environmental, art and trauma-conscious education, she has delivered hundreds of teacher trainings and workshops for children. As the education consultant of Parents International she has developed and delivered international trainings for both teachers and parents on parental engagement. As the education consultant of the European School Heads Association she has participated in European projects focusing on inclusion, art education and microcredential course development. She is also the editor of ESHA’s magazine HEADlight.
Eli Pijaca Plavšić
Eli Pijaca Plavšić graduated sociology in 2004 at the University in Zagreb, Croatia. For the last 20 years her major interest is in the field of education policy analyses and development, educational reform, educational management, inclusive policy and promoting equity at all levels of education – from ECEC to higher education. Also her major part of the interest is development of curriculum for teacher training programmes in various topics (strategic planning and governance of educational institutions, methodology of teaching, civic education, inclusive education, mental health and wellbeing) but also development of teaching materials (handbooks, textbooks, learning plans).
From 2010 to 2021 she worked as an Executive Director of Forum for Freedom in Education, currently at the position Head of the program and education policy analyst. As a practitioner she has a fruitful experience in the school based work (as a teacher trainer) by directly working with more than 350 educational institutions in Croatia and more than 3000 teachers and 150 school directors. She has extensive experience as independent educational expert and education policy analyst including assessment and evaluation of education policies in the country.
Since 2016 she works as independent consultant and national expert for the European commission. She also worked on number of national and local strategic educational projects in Croatia. Since 2018 she is a member of the NESET Network, an advisory network of experts working on the social dimension of education and training.
Ed Cousins, Director, InterActing
Co Founder and Director of both Interacting+, Interacting UK and The Connected Learning Company. Leading on the design and delivery of innovative teacher training courses and connecting drama processes to classroom needs. Ed is an experienced coordinator of EU projects and an accomplished contributor to conferences both as keynote speaker and workshop host. Ed is co Founder and current chair of the European Association of Training Providers. Ed believes in the power of networks to contribute to improved learning opportunities and best practice in the education sector.
Ed lives in Madrid and brings his passion for theatre and sports to his love of learning. Ed graduated in English and American literature from the University of Warwick before going on to complete an MA on ‘A Legacy of Empire ‘ in Anglo Irish Studies at University College Dublin. His work at Interacting continues to investigate the power of stories as a vehicle for learning and promoting inclusive cultures.
Richard Tallaron – LFEE Europe Ltd
Richard is the Director and Co-Founder of LFEE Europe Ltd where he oversees the management and development of all European training programmes, as well as bilateral / multinational mobility projects for Teachers and other Educators. Richard believes in innovative practices and a blended learning approach to enhance the learning and teaching experiences of practitioners and their pupils. Richard graduated in “Scottish Literature and Culture” and “French as a Foreign Language” from the University of Grenoble. He now works with teachers both at Primary and Secondary levels throughout Europe and beyond. He created DIPS with Franck Le-Cars and his team in 2018. Richard recently published a book called “A Taste of Languages, Stories of French and English / Le goût des langues, petites histoires de l’anglais et du français”.
Linda Hye
Linda Hye is employed at University of Agder as head of the executive education at the Faculty of Social Sciences, and as a researcher at the Centre for Local Government Studies. She has extensive teaching and guidance experience from several postgraduate programmes such as Master in management and National management education for school leaders and kindergarten managers. She completing her PhD on studying municipal middle managers this fall. She also has experience from a number of research projects within management, organizational development and organizational culture in municipalities.