Key takeaways:

- David Cameron’s Background: An influential figure in education, Cameron is a speaker, trainer, mentor, coach, and advisor in the UK and abroad, with past roles including Director of Children’s Services, Head of Education, and Curriculum Advisor in Scotland, contributing to national reviews and Scotland’s Creative Learning Plan.

- Vision for Education: Cameron advocates for an education that enriches young lives, fosters independent thinking, and commits to building a better world, emphasizing children’s rights to curiosity, discovery, play, identity, independence, and resilience.

- Challenges in Modern Education: He critiques the focus on “school readiness” over child-centered learning, the obsession with pace and baseline testing, and the culture of fear that limits children’s experiences, advocating for managed risk and real-world engagement over virtual or detached childhoods.

- Role of Stories in Education: Stories are “psychologically privileged,” enabling empathy, understanding, and creativity, acting as a springboard for dialogue and reflection, helping children process narratives, build resilience, and address real-world issues like inequality and environmental challenges.

- Creativity and Resilience: Cameron emphasizes that accomplishment through open-ended tasks, like those in Tales Toolkit, builds confidence and resilience, allowing children to explore possibilities and rehearse life scenarios without fear of failure, fostering a sense of control.

- Educational Philosophy: He promotes an “either-and” approach, combining structured knowledge with creativity, rejecting indoctrination, and encouraging active learning, varied approaches, and motivation through achievement to prepare children for adaptability, not just future jobs.

- Community and Systemic Change: Cameron calls for cooperative, community-driven change over individualistic competition, urging educators to reflect on practice, gather evidence, and align changes in curriculum and training to support play-based, progressive learning from early years onward.