About Andy Speers
Andy Speers is an intermediate teacher at Elora Public School. He has been teaching for 17 years and is passionate about experiential learning and giving students valuable lessons surrounding leadership and inclusion.
He currently runs a sledge hockey and wheelchair basketball program along with heading Empowerment Day for the Upper Grand District School Board.
Connect with Andy: Email
Listen Now
Listen to the episode now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favourite podcast platform.
Resources Mentioned
Empowerment Day (UGDSB)
Wheelchair Basketball Program (Patrick Anderson)
Tessa Virtue (speaker)
Spencer West (speaker)
The Transcript
**Please note that all of our transcriptions come from rev.com and are 80% accurate. We’re grateful for the robots that make this possible and realize that it’s not a perfect process.
Sam Demma (00:00):
This is your host and youth speaker Sam Demma. I am very excited to bring you today’s conversation with my good friend, Andy Speers. Andy originally called me a few years ago when I was out in Vancouver speaking to some schools about a ginormous event he was running called empowerment day. And from that moment, him and myself have become good friends.
Sam Demma (01:07):
And I’m so happy that I had a chance to talk with him and share this conversation with you through this podcast. Andy Speers is an intermediate teacher at Elora public school. He has been teaching for 17 years and is passionate about experiential learning and giving students valuable lessons surrounding leadership and inclusion. He currently runs a sledge hockey and wheelchair basketball program along with heading empowerment day, a massive conference board wide event for the upper grand district school board. I hope you enjoy this conversation and I will see you on the other side, Andy, welcome to the high-performing educator podcast. Huge pleasure to have you on the show here this morning. Why don’t you start by introducing yourself and sharing a little bit about what brought you to where you are today in education?
Andy Speers (01:56):
Oh, that’s a loaded question right off the bat, Sam. I know. Thank you very much for having me. It’s a pleasure and honor to be here. My name’s Andy Speers I’ve been a grade seven eight teacher in the upper grand district school board for 17 years now. Currently at Elora public school just transferred there after six, 16 years at Drayton Heights public school. And yeah in all honesty got, got into education and got into education really because of my grade five teacher. To be honest with you. I, I knew I wanted to be a teacher after I had her as a grade five teacher and really everything that I’ve been doing leading to now is really because of, of that year.
Sam Demma (02:52):
That’s awesome. And did you know from a young age that education was the thing for you? Or what, what led you? What led you down the path?
Andy Speers (03:02):
Yeah, like I said, I’m a grade five teacher. Her name was Mrs. Revard. I’ll never forget her. And she just was an amazing teacher really kind of, really kind of showed me how important it was to have a quest for learning and you know, and ever since her, like, I was not overly a great student. Right. I did what I needed to do to get by. But when it mattered most, I kind of remember the lessons in which she gave me through the, that, that grade five grade five year. And yeah, so right from, honestly from grade five, when I first got into it, I just thought, you know, teachers got it great, you know, like, you know, summers off and all that stuff. But then as I kind of moved closer to the, the career I realized why I really wanted to do it. Got it.
Sam Demma (04:02):
Yeah. That’s awesome. And you mentioned this grade five teacher. Do you remember some of the things that went? I know it was a long time ago, not that you’re an old guy, but you know, grade five was a while back. Do you remember any of the things that she did that had a big impact on you or generally if you had to think back, like what do you think?
Andy Speers (04:18):
And I think in all honesty, just making connection making a connection with, with her students. And, and it, it’s interesting too because I, I, you know, my classmates, I don’t know if she had the same impact on them. She just did on me. She just made such a great connection with me. And I, really kind of, obviously there’s lots of people, my parents and my wife and all that stuff have attributed to me wanting to take this path is not all Mrs Revard, but just kind of specifically showing kind of the importance of a connection and and the impact that one person can have on another in, in kind of pushing you in a positive direction. And that’s, that’s really why I wanted, when I got into teaching and I, I kind of looked at the age group that I might want to teach, and I really kind of picked that intermediate area because I really see that as being kind of the most influential years of of a kid’s life. Right. they, they’re going to pick a direction in which in which they’re going to go. And I kind of thought, you know, what if, if I have the ability to, to point them in the right direction then that’s a win for me. And I think a win for them too. So yeah, so that really, I, think the biggest thing that she taught me is the power of a connection.
Sam Demma (05:51):
And in terms of making the connection, was it through her talking, you pulling you aside asking questions, getting to know you on a personal level. Like if an educator is listening right now and they’re like, this sounds phenomenal. I want to make more connections with my students. When you think that, what do you think that looks like in the classroom or in today’s learning environment?
Andy Speers (06:09):
Well, what I’ve learned from her is, you know it’s, it’s important to, to make a personal connection with your students. And, and that can be done in so many different ways and it’s going to work differently for different students, right. Some students are, you know, we’ll, we’ll kind of be a bit more standoffish, especially at the age group in which I am, and they don’t want to you know, a lot of times these days as well, too, don’t want to make it seem like they’re you know, have that close relationship with their teacher, but just even, you know, ask them, you know, asking them about their weekend. You know, if they’re into hockey or music or whatever, just kind of keep tabs on them as to where and what they’re what, they’re, what they’re up to outside of school as well, too making, you know, making connections with parents and families as well.
Andy Speers (07:01):
I just think is so important having that open line of communication you know, moving forward, not, not overdoing it because my wife and I have been on the other end where, you know, that that teacher is just like constantly in communication with, and, but, but at the same time, just, you know just touching base with them every once in a while, making sure that come report card time, and many teachers have heard this come report card time. It shouldn’t be a surprise kind of where their, their kid is. Right. but I even find with parents as well too, there’s some parents that are kind of willing to open up and really want to chat with you about kind of you know personal life. And then there’s some that just, you know, what, where’s my kid academically and, and, and that’s, that’s good. So you kind of get that sense from just talking to them for the first time.
Sam Demma (07:52):
And at what point in your educational journey career did you decide you wanted to get involved in as many extra curricular activities as you could, and start clubs and start conferences, maybe tell me about the beginning of empowerment day as well?
Andy Speers (08:08):
So this is, this is an easy start, Sam. My son, who’s now nine years old going into grade four, he’s coming to a Elora with me next year, which is really exciting. He was born with down syndrome and so my wife and I, when he, when he was born we started looking at where we can kind of make impact to, to help him and other, other kids with special needs in the community flourish and be involved. And I have my background is I have a phys ed degree. And my wife is a special education consultant in the board. At the time when Ash was born, she was a resource teacher so a special education teacher in the board. And so we kind of combined our, our forces and we looked at the parks within our community and we were able to in it, it was, it was so amazing with, within I think 15, 15 to 20 months or so fundraise enough money to put two fully accessible playgrounds within our community.
Andy Speers (09:21):
So one in Ferguson, one in Laura and yeah, they’re, they’re just so well used and, and all that. And so, you know, after we accomplished that, we kind of started thinking, okay, well, what’s next? And I started to talk to my student leadership group about different ways in which we could have impact. And this was right when this was the year in which we day was it used to always be there used to be a weekday Waterloo which we would be able to take a, you know, 20 to 25 kids to, and what ended up happening was they canceled the day Waterloo and just moved it to Toronto to at that point, their Canada center. And they called it weekday, Ontario. And you were only able to take eight kids while as you know, how many kids, especially within this age group, want to be leaders, want to experience that want to go to like big, powerful days like that.
Andy Speers (10:21):
And so what my student leadership group kind of said, well, there was two girls in particular Ms. Tate Driscoll and Alexis Cooper, I’ll never forget them that actually said, why don’t we do our own kind of weday? And I was like, oh, okay, well, that’s great. And well, who would we have, you know, who we have at this thing? Like, we don’t have any money, we don’t have anything. So what are, how are we going to do this? And so we ended up being able to raise $6,000 for our first what’s called empowerment day. Now we held it at the Drayton arena. We had 1300 students and we were able to raise enough money to get Spencer west who is a very, probably the most prestigious weekday speaker. He’s just phenomenal you know, climb Mount Kilimanjaro on his hands to raise millions of dollars for drinking water millions of dollars for clean drinking water in Africa.
Andy Speers (11:20):
So just truly inspirational. Wonderful. And I, one of my, or one of my cousins is a really great musician as well, too. So we had her as well, too. So, you know, we kind of pieced it all together. We had a bunch of students there. Well, the feedback from that day was so incredible that we’re like, you know what, there’s such a need for this, let’s make this grow. So we went from a, about a $6,000 budget to the following year. We got students out and you know, doing presentations and to different groups, different businesses, all that kind of stuff. You know, to, to fundraise a little bit more. And, and to this day, we, you know, we’ve never had a sponsor kind of canceled it. Like a sponsor has always came back the next year. They come to the event and they’re like, yes, this is amazing.
Andy Speers (12:07):
This is what we want to be supporting. So you know, but we go out each year and we make new presentations and, you know, the bigger that we kind of get the bigger stars, like Sam demo we’re able to afford. And but yeah, so we we’ve been going, this’ll be its seventh year. We’re now, currently at the Sleeman center in Gwelf which houses about 5,600 students. Schools are one thing that we made clear, right from the beginning, schools are allowed to bring as many students as they want. So if they want to bring every student from grade five to grade eight, then go for it. If they want to bring, you know, just a grade six class, then they can do that as well too. This is obviously only in the upper grand district school board. So we, we don’t offer because it’s so popular.
Andy Speers (12:55):
It really honestly sells out in about twenty-five minutes. So we put it out online and let everyone know what’s coming out online and, and the seats are gone, you know, but I, I believe other than maybe one or two schools, every single school has the opportunity to be there. And some schools choose not to come like each year. So a lot of times they’ll come one year and then they won’t come the next year and then they’ll come one year. It really depends on how they want to pay for it and all that kind of stuff to be there. But, you know over the years we’ve had the likes of Chris Hadfield, Serena rider, Hayley Wickenheiser this year coming up we have Tessa virtue, you know, so we, we we’re, we’re really we’re, we’re really kind of growing and you know, these last couple of years in which it’s been canceled my hope is that it’s not something that is, is going to lose any steam or anything.
Andy Speers (13:56):
I think everyone is going to be excited to do it again. So this year we’re, we’re going to have a virtual event in October, which we recorded last year with our my student leadership group. And and just did everything virtually with our speakers. And then this year coming up or, sorry, the following year in 2022 we’ll go back to our original may at the Sleeman center. The hope is anyways, right. It just depends on where we all are. And then, yeah, like from, from there as well too, my, my wife and I really looked at where we want to go as far as accessibility is concerned as well. And we were, I was able to kind of secure some funding to start a sledge hockey program in the upper grand district school board. And so it tours around to the 14 schools a year.
Andy Speers (14:44):
And I I’ve trained numerous coaches and they’re so they kind of take it from there and the board is so good about getting equipment to, and from arenas and all that kind of stuff. Cause it’s a, it’s a big job. And then also also we started just started just before COVID the year before COVID we started the Patrick Anderson wheelchair basketball program and pat is a former empowerment day speaker and one of my best friends. And he’s seen as the world’s best wheelchair basketball player of all time, kind of like the Michael Jordan or LeBron James of wheelchair basketball. He’s got five gold medals, Paralympic gold medals. He’s from Fergus right here. I went to high school with them and we’ve been best buddies ever since. And so him and I kind of teamed up and we started that program with the help of Bob Cameron and his wife, Linda as well, that own heritage river here.
Andy Speers (15:35):
And they, they stepped up and were able to pay for 16 sport wheelchairs and that tours around you know, the, the hope is, is once COVID is over roughly around 30 to 35 schools a year. Wow. So with, with, with instruction, right, from the best player in the world. So as I say to schools, you know, when you’re getting this you’re, if this was a hockey program, you’d be getting instruction from Wayne Gretzky, you know, so it’s really, really cool. He doesn’t go personally, but he we’ve videoed everything. And so teachers can follow along. He talks right to the students. And so the teachers can basically press play and and pat, pat runs them through everything in which they’re going to do. So it’s, it’s really cool. So yeah, my, my main focus has always been kind of, you know, accessibility inclusion and, and one thing that’s about empowerment day as well too, is that there’s always going to be a speaker and empowerment data. That’s going to focus specifically on that.
Sam Demma (16:41):
Awesome. And does your buddy also play for team Canada right now? Is he in, is he in Tokyo for the Olympics?
Andy Speers (16:47):
So this is so he, his first Olympics was in the year 2000 in Sydney, Australia. And so he did gold in 2000 silver in 2004 and then golden Beijing, golden golden London. And then he retired because he’s a music and as well too, and kind of met his wife and started kind of having kids and they live in New York city. And he so he decided to, you know, what, I’m going to retire from basketball. I I’m, I’m crouching on 40 here. And I’m going to really focus with my, my wife on our, our band and, and making a go of music. And he’s a phenomenal musician. He actually played at my wedding and you know, our, I think it was my wife and I’s wedding song. So he, he played that for us, for our first dance. But yeah, he he is but he team Canada, I think basically kinda kind of said, please, could you come back because he’s just that good, that elite. And so he got himself as best back into shape as he can. He’s, he’s insanely in shape, but back into shape basketball shape anyways. And he’s back over at Tokyo at the pair games right now. So his next his first game is tomorrow actually. So I’ll be streaming it and watching it from here.
Sam Demma (18:15):
So V2 actually. So I know one of the other athletes, the name’s Lee, my Almac and yeah, so this is a small world. I was connected through another guy. So when you mentioned Paralympic basketball, I was like, I know someone out there that’s so cool. Well, that’s amazing. And you know, the highlight on accessibility I think is so important. I there’s a group of students in Waterloo, I believe they’re just graduated high school going to university and they started a non-profit while they were still in grade 11 called Acceso. And the goal of the organization was sorry. Oh yeah, sorry. So the goal of the organization, the goal of the organization was to walk through malls and walk through stores and rank their accessibility and post it publicly online and like state where things could be changed and improved to make the spaces more accessible.
Sam Demma (19:08):
And they walked through, they walked through over like a thousand independent stores over the span of two years. Many of which they got kicked out of because they had iPads and were making notes and people thought they were going to like steal something or just kind of funny. But yeah, when you talk about accessibility that came to mind and it’s so cool that you’re integrating that into the empowerment, they stuff, those two, those two students that came up to you and said, Hey, Andy, you know, we really want to do this. Do you still stay in touch with them?
Andy Speers (19:41):
Well, now that I moved to a LoRa no, but, and, and not as much, I always invite them obviously to empowerment to kind of see, let them see what they’ve started, but you know, they’re, they’re well off into university and maybe even past university now. Right. So yeah, so I, I don’t stay as much in touch. I, I, the, the years following them leaving a little bit more I did you know, a bit of reference stuff for them and things like that. I know that they moved on both of them and within their own community, we’re on the youth council to try to make change for for, for youth in the community afterwards. And that’s, that’s a completely voluntary you know, position and you just basically volunteer yourself to do it. So it just shows the, you know that, that those two just really want it to make positive change. Whether or not it was in a school setting or whether or not it was in, when they went on to high school. I know that they both had big roles kind of in leadership as well, too.
Sam Demma (20:55):
Yeah. And there could be other educators listening right now thinking, holy crap, that’s amazing. You guys put on this conference for your school board every year, and it’s this a rewarding experience and someone else might be listening from a totally different school board thinking if my students came up to me and said, Hey, let’s, let’s host an event with 5,000 people in a, in an arena. It might be a little overwhelming at first. Like, how did you go from this sounds like a great idea to let’s actually do this thing.
Andy Speers (21:24):
Well, I think, you know, a lot of things have to fall into place. Right. And, and my advice to anyone that would like to start, this is one don’t, don’t hesitate to start small because it has to start somewhere. Right. The other thing is, is to reach out to people like whether it’s me or someone else that has done it before and, and kind of get your bearings as to what it might take to kind of put this together, because it certainly is a lot of work. You definitely need kind of a champion to kind of take it, take it on. But I can assure you that, you know, after the first couple of years and you have the opportunity to kind of get the kinks out of it, it becomes a lot easier, right. So I think everyone looks at it as it’s an overwhelming amount of work to start something like that and go out and find sponsorship and all that kind of stuff.
Andy Speers (22:24):
And yeah, you’re going to have to take some time on your own. It’s going to be outside of school time. You’re going to have to sometimes meet students at you know, different organizations or businesses that, you know, maybe seven o’clock at night when the businesses like when they’re available and that kind of stuff. But at the same time, once those connections are made and once kind of all your ducks are in a row the day becomes a lot easier. It’s a lot easier to put together. And throughout that time too, you’re going to put together a team of other educators as well, too. So like around empowerment day, now we have, you know, a team of educators that are that puts again together lesson plans based on the, what they’re going to be learning about each, like from each speaker, right?
Andy Speers (23:11):
So each speaker will have a certain message and we find different messages, so four or five different messages from each of those speakers. And then there’s lessons around those lessons that they’re going to be learning. And they’re going to learn about those speakers so that when they get there, they feel almost like they know the speaker and that they’re, it becomes kind of like a life-changing event rather than just another field trip. And that’s and then you’ve got teams that are at the facility that are directing everyone. You’ve got teams that are, you know you know, helping you with seating teams that are, you know helping with contracts team. So it, you know, the first by starting small, you kind of see what it’s going to kind of take if you want to grow. And if you don’t, it’s fine, right? Like there’s, there’s lots of incredible, like smaller events.
Andy Speers (24:01):
You don’t need to have the elite of the elite com I always find too that the best speakers on empowerment day are never the ones that, and sorry to, you know, Tessa virtue, whoever’s listening to the podcast, but the biggest celebrity that is, is going to be there. That might be your draw to get people to, to come in the best speakers are never the ones that are the biggest draw, right? The biggest you know, we’ve had Mariatu kumara com. That is Marriott’s Tamara. She is bite of a mango is the book that she or memoir that she wrote. And she’s a former prisoner of war that at the age of 12, at these kids’ age that are watching this event at the age of 12, had her hands cut off while she was a prisoner of war and she takes them through an extremely emotional time in her life.
Andy Speers (24:56):
And you can hear a pin drop of 5,600 students from grade five to grade eight. Like it’s so impactful. We had Michelle Chika Y nine, that is was a former child. Soldier was forced at the age of five to be this child soldier at the age of five. He was forced to shoot his best friend. And he hates takes them through this experience. And again, just, it’s so powerful, the, the sound of silence, right. So they don’t need, and, and, and these individuals aren’t necessarily the most expensive people to, to get. Right. and so you, you might need to look at, okay, well, how, how do I get a budget of $6,000 and, and just get one, one speaker for that $6,000. And can I get a venue donated, you know, for this great event, because there’s a lot of places out there that want to help youth in this community.
Andy Speers (26:01):
So, you know, is there an arena or something that, that would be like, yeah, you know what, this place is sitting empty through the day anyways. Yeah. Bring, bring your people in. Right. And then the board, the whatever board you might work for, you know, they should be willing to help you, what you want to put on an event that’s going to empower 6,000 or empower a thousand of our students. Yeah. Awesome. How can we help? Right. What do we have to do? And so a lot of times there’ll be there to supply you with chairs or tables or a stage or something, right. Lights or audio, or maybe they have, like, we have the brilliant Ron birdie. That’s kind of our ADA coordinator within board that has been, I’d be nowhere without them. Right. that does kind of the AB stuff.
Andy Speers (26:49):
So you know, like there it’s, it seems overwhelming when you start kind of putting everything down on paper, but I can assure you that things like I would encourage people to look into it look up empowerment day and look me up, send me an email. Right. Like, I, I would be glad to, if, if I could see kind of this day kind of growth that would be the best thing that I’m at the point kind of at at with empowerment day that I can’t grow really anymore. Right. We’re in the biggest venue in our entire board. Right. it can’t get bigger than where we are. And so to see it grow into other communities, into other boards, it doesn’t even need to be called empowerment day. Just a version of it. That that would be amazing. And I’m, I would be always willing to help out with that.
Sam Demma (27:42):
I love it. And if someone is listening right now and is interested in getting in touch with you, can you verbally just share an email or some way that they could reach out and get in touch to have a conversation?
Andy Speers (27:52):
Yeah, absolutely. It’s Andy.Speers@ugdsb.on.ca
Sam Demma (28:08):
To wrap up this conversation, if you could go back and I need to, the first year you got into education and teaching both at the same advice and experience you have now, what did, what words of wisdom would you give your younger self?
Andy Speers (28:20):
Oh that’s a, that’s a good question. You know what, it’s, it’s interesting. Cause I taught a grade two class my very first year. And then I moved to intermediate the very following year. So I, I’m gonna, I’m gonna look at if it was my second year, is that okay? Yeah. Coming into intermediate. My, I think my biggest piece of advice is especially for the age group in which I teach is don’t go into a year wanting to be the student’s friends, always remember that you are their educator first. And, and students will learn to respect that a lot more than you trying to be their friend and kind of, you know and because by you being in their friends, then, you know, the, the routine and the discipline and the the class management, although that stuff kind of falls apart.
Andy Speers (29:22):
And that was the, I remember my first year of teaching intermediate, I went in and I’m trying to be buddy buddy with these, with them and stuff like that. And they walked all over me all over me. So go in and, and, you know, have your, have your rules, put your thumb down. And, and students will really learn. And by doing that and starting with that, that’s, you know, that’s going to allow you later on within the year, like even within a few months to kind of turn the corner a little bit, because they know what your expectations are. They know exactly, you know, what, what is expected of them and, and that, that can allow you to then start to really dig into making those connections with them. Right. and so, you know, when they know their expectations, they’re going to, you know, when, when they get different assignments and things like that, you know, that allows you to then sit down with them afterwards and kind of say you know what, we can take this and we can do even that much more. Right. And, and allows you to push their boundaries a little bit more, take them outside their comfort zone and stuff. So, yeah, don’t be buddy-buddy especially not right off the bat, not a good idea.
Andy Speers (30:40):
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So always remember that you are there as their teacher and I, and I say that to them. I always say, you know what, guys, I’m a fun, loving guy. It takes a lot to really get me angry, but at the same time I am your teacher. I’m not your friend. Okay. So my name is Mr. Spheres. Okay. It’s not spear easy. It’s not, you know, all that stuff because yeah, I, I, I ended up teaching this year I taught seven boys all off the same hockey team where in my class, and you have to, we really worked right at the beginning of the year of reminding those students, that the classroom is a classroom and not a hockey dressing room. And, and my name is Mr. Speers. It’s not spear Z. And they got it really, really quick, right. So it’s just kind of setting those boundaries and, and, you know, allowing yourself to, to laugh and have a good time with those kids. But at the same time, you know, making sure that those rules are followed and, and make sure that you’re their teacher, not their friend.
Sam Demma (31:45):
I love that. Love that. Awesome. Andy, this has been a jam packed interview about event planning about student impact about you know, your best advice, your journey and education?
Andy Speers (32:00):
If I could give one more thing as well too, is that, especially with the leadership stuff and event planning to let give students the opportunity, don’t feel that you need to do everything yourself. Students will always step up student if you give them that opportunity. And you’d give them clear guidelines as far as what is a an and I, I know as far as academic wise and stuff, that’s not always the case. Okay. But when it comes to leadership wise and, and they know that kind of everything’s on the line, I always say to our guys that go, you guys are planning an event for the entire board. We there’s a lot on the line here. If you can’t handle that pressure, then you’re might not be in the right spot. Right. Or we can give you less of a, less of a job that, you know, maybe you’re coming and doing set up with me.
Andy Speers (32:47):
Yeah. Right. Rather than, you know, getting up, you don’t have the opportunity to get up and introduce a speaker. And a second before, you’re about to go on, go, I can’t do this. That’s not, it’s not in the cards you, so you need to know. And, and I always say to, I would not ask you to do this. If I didn’t believe you couldn’t do it. And, and they really will respond to that. They will, they, they will step up. I’ve never had a student in seven years back out of a speaking agent there. These students are there. They’re so nervous before going up right there. They’re getting up. And they’ve got 5,600 students in front of them all around them. And they know they’re going to be judged and they know, you know, and they get up there and they just, that’s, that’s my favorite part of the entire day, just seeing some of these kids go so far outside their comfort zone, but then moving forward, getting up in front of a class and doing a presentation, getting up in front of a hundred people, it’s nothing to them. Right. So, yeah. Yeah. So I would just also give that as well to give students opportunity. They’ll step up of love.
Sam Demma (33:53):
That I can, I will right
Andy Speers (33:56):
Now. It’s it’s I can, I will watch me. Nice.
Sam Demma (34:00):
Cool. Cool, Andy again, huge pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Can’t wait to see you again in may and you have the great work and we’ll, we’ll talk soon.
Andy Speers (34:09):
Awesome. Sam, thanks so much. Thanks for the opportunity and good luck to all those teachers out there, not coming here
Sam Demma (34:15):
And there you have it. Another amazing guest and amazing interview on the high-performing educator podcast. As always, if you enjoy these episodes, please consider leaving a rating and review. So other educators like yourself can find this content and benefit from it. And here’s an exclusive opportunity that I mentioned at the start of the show. If you want to meet the guest on today’s episode, if you want to meet any of the guests that we have interviewed, consider going to www.highperformingeducator.com and sign up to join the exclusive network. You’ll have access to networking events throughout 2021 and other special opportunities. And I promise I will not fill your inbox. Talk to you soon. I’ll see you on the next episode.
Join the Educator Network & Connect with Andy Speers
The High Performing Educator Podcast was brought to life during the outbreak of COVID-19 to provide you with inspirational stories and practical advice from your colleagues in education. By tuning in, you will hear the stories and ideas of the world’s brightest and most ambitious educators. You can expect interviews with Principals, Teachers, Guidance Counsellors, National Student Association, Directors and anybody that works with youth. You can find and listen to all the episodes for free here.
