School was Designed (not Discovered): A Critical History of Mass Schooling
Speaker Spotlight: Kelly Rigg
EDUCATION: Past > Present > Future
**SPEAKER SPOTLIGHT: KELLY RIGG***
Hi Jo,
EDUCATION: Past > Present > Future
***SPEAKER SPOTLIGHT: KELLY RIGG***
Announcing the first speaker at the ‘Education: Past > Present > Future’ event! Kelly Rigg will be opening the event at 11am BST on Wednesday 22nd April.
Day 1 focuses on the past, to give us an understanding of how we got where we are today with our modern, conventional school system. Read on to find out about Kelly’s session.
School was Designed (not Discovered): A Critical History of Mass Schooling
In this talk, Kelly will explore the modern history of mass schooling in the UK, with a curious, critical lens. She will ask how the system was designed, what it was built to achieve and what is has quietly trained us to accept as ‘normal’.
She will help trace the shift from home, church and community learning – to industrial-age standardisation, how measurement, compliance and the ‘school standard’ became so deeply embedded, and the consequences we now face.
Kelly invites us to hold nuance, recognising what schools can offer – while still questioning the commonly held beliefs we have inherited around education, imagining what education could look like if we centred agency, broader opportunity, wellbeing and life-long learning.
About Kelly Rigg
Kelly Rigg is a UK-based home educating mum of two and a neurodiversity life coach who supports families detouring from mainstream schooling - whether through neurodiversity, unmet needs, or a desire to do life differently.
With nearly six years of lived home education experience and two years coaching, Kelly helps parents embrace a more neuro-affirming approach to education, reclaiming confidence, and creating lives built around learning that work for their actual children (not an imaginary “school standard”).
She co-hosts The BIG Home Ed Conversations podcast - 5-star rated and consistently ranked in the UK’s top home education podcasts - growing downloads by 400% in 2025.
Kelly has recently completed the Barrett Coaching & Training’s ‘ADHD Coach Training’, dual-accredited by the Association for Coaching and the Universal Coaching Alliance.
Register for the Event
You can find the full speaker schedule and register for free at info.progressiveeducation.org/future. Don’t worry if you can’t make the lives, as everyone who signs up will receive the recordings afterwards.
Hope you can make it!