Amit Kalley

Former Deputy Headteacher sharing his story of grief, loss and recovery to create empathy and to celebrate difference and vulnerability.

A former Deputy Headteacher, Amit has worked with thousands of parents and teachers and even more young people over a ten year career in education. Amit uses his experience and his training as an ICF Coach to create an environment that is more empathetic and human and where students can thrive.

Amit shares his story of losing his mother to ovarian cancer and having a daughter born with three holes in her heart to create an environment that is filled with compassion and empathy and where vulnerabilities can be celebrated. The underlying theme of these talks is to support anti-bullying and to encourage students and staff to think about how their actions can impact others. Everyone has a story, but if you don’t know somebody’s story, you have no idea how your behaviour can hurt them.

Amit is also passionate about celebrating diversity and, as a Sikh, his sessions come from the point of view of culture and minority experience in loss and recovery. Amit wants to create an environment where everybody can thrive and everybody has the same opportunities, regardless of any differences that exist between individuals.

By creating school environments with empathy running through them, the school experience for all students should be a positive one where everyone can express themselves, feel safe and be empowered to thrive.

School should always be a safe space for every single child. However, we know that bullying is a problem that still exists, more so now because it can take place online and, therefore, at home. This talk focuses on the data around bullying and the links it has to mental health issues in victims whilst encouraging the need for compassion and empathy across the school. It uses real life examples to demonstrate the impact that bullying can have so that students are left to think about their own actions and how they wish to develop as individuals.