KNOWLEDGE. IDENTITY. HOPE
Our Future Generation
You are the real influencers
Type: Teacher Development Session
Client: Praxis Future Academy, Ibadan, Nigeria
Delivered: Remotely · 2026
Audience: Teaching staff, primary and secondary
Designed by: Dr. Simisola Duro-Pirisola
THE CONTEXT
Praxis Future Academy is an international, co-educational British curriculum school based in Ibadan, Nigeria - a forward-thinking institution committed to holistic development and preparing students for the demands of a modern, interconnected world. With a mission centred on nurturing curious minds and shaping responsible global citizens, Praxis is exactly the kind of school that takes teacher development seriously.
The Founder and Executive Director, Mr David Olorunniwo, came across my blog post - Dear Teachers: You Are The Real Influencers - and reached out directly. He wanted something that would do more than tick a CPD box. He wanted his teachers to leave the room feeling something.
THE CHALLENGE
Teaching staff at a growing school carry enormous responsibility, often with limited time, stretched resources and the quiet weight of wondering whether what they do actually makes a difference. The session needed to speak honestly into that reality, not around it.
The brief was clear: inspire the teaching team, give them a framework they could hold onto and make the hour feel worth showing up for. For a mixed primary and secondary staff group, the content also needed to bridge different contexts without losing specificity.
WHAT I DESIGNED
Working entirely from my own research, writing and practice, I designed a one-hour teacher development session built around a single, provocative reframe: in a world of social media influencers, the most powerful influencers in a child's life are still the people standing at the front of their classroom.
The session was structured around three core ideas - Care, Curiosity and Connection - and moved from an opening reflection that invited teachers to remember a teacher who changed their own life, through to a practical close with three concrete calls to action they could take back into the classroom that week.
Key elements of the design included a deliberate opening silence, sixty seconds for teachers to sit with the question before speaking, an influencer reframe that recontextualised the word entirely and an honest acknowledgement of how hard teaching in Nigeria is.
THE OUTCOME
Following the session, the founder confirmed that he would like to continue working together with further sessions planned for the Praxis teaching team. This was not a one-off engagement. It was the beginning of an ongoing relationship between Our Future Generation and a school that shares the same conviction: that teachers are the most powerful lever in any education system, and they deserve to be developed accordingly.
A single blog post written from conviction, published without a commercial agenda, can open a door to real work in a real school. That teacher development doesn't need a large room, a conference budget or a famous name to land with impact. And when you speak honestly to teachers about what they already are, they lean in.
