THE keynote speaker at this year's School Awards will be David Weston - founder and chief Exec of the Teacher Development Trust.

The trust is a national charity for effective professional development in schools and colleges that was set up in early 2012.

Mr Weston is also the Chair of the Teachers’ Professional Development Expert Group at the UK Government’s Department for Education.

He taught Maths, Physics and ICT for nine years in two state schools in the South-East of England, and was leading data management for the last five. During the last few years of his teaching career he began consultancy work around data and professional development, including a role setting up a new data management award for the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust and some teaching on the PGCE Mathematics course at Brunel University and the Teach First course run from Kings College and Canterbury Christ Church.

He has written for a number of media outlets including The Guardian, the Times Educational Supplement, SecEd, Headteacher Update, Senior Leadership Today and Education Investor, and has also appeared on Sky News, Newsnight, ITV London and national and local radio stations as well as having given a TED talk in the USA.

Mr Weston said: "My increasing involvement in professional development and teacher learning led to a sense of frustration at the poor state of ongoing training for teachers and I created GoodCPDGuide.com in late 2011 followed by setting up the Teacher Development Trust in early 2012.

"This was an exciting time as the charity began with just an idea and no financial backing. I soon realised that it wasn’t going to be possible to combine my role as Chief Executive of the Trust with teaching and reluctantly took my last classes through to their exams in May 2012 and then left to become full time at the charity.

"I'm really looking forward to the School Awards evening.

"There are so many teachers and schools doing phenomenal work, going the extra mile to help children and young people to succeed. We don't celebrate this work nearly enough so it's going to be brilliant to be at an event where Bradford schools and teachers get the recognition they deserve.

"It's a real honour to be given the opportunity to speak and to meet the many deserving winners."