IPEN UKEurope
Positive Education & Wellbeing
The unstoppable movement for positive education & well-being across nurseries, schools, colleges & universities.
IPEN UKEurope
Positive Education & Wellbeing
The unstoppable movement for positive education & well-being across nurseries, schools, colleges & universities.
What is Positive Education?
The International Positive Education Network UKEurope brings together people and organisations in education committed to promoting the development of children's' and young peoples' character and well-being alongside their personal and academic achievements in order for them the flourish. This is positive education.
Our growing network has three purposes: reform policy, change educational practices and support collaboration.
It's based on sound, substantiated and internationally recognised research and proven implementation in nurseries, schools, college and universities across the globe, led by our founders Prof Marty Seligman and Sir Anthony Seldon.
Our Mission
Our goal is to equip children and young people with the knowledge and life skills to flourish and contribute to the flourishing of others. Is there any greater goal for a human?
Over the coming years, we aim to build a network of one million people across UKEurope to help achieve this goal, together with 1,000 organisations, and to persuade governments and cities to include measures of human flourishing within their national plans.
You can help achieve this goal.
This is important & urgent business
For many children and young people today, education is no more than an endless loop on a hampster wheel of trying to collect qualifications, and often failing to do so. Education is so much more than a collection of qualifications
You can help to break the hampster wheel and transform the lives of millions.
Joining IPEN UKEurope puts you at the forefront of educational reform, thinking and practice alongside a growing international network of tens of thousands of individuals and organisations from hundreds countries across the globe.
About Us
Co-Founder: Marty Seligman
Marty Seligman is the founder of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania, which mission it is to promote research, training, education, and the dissemination of Positive Psychology, resilience and grit.
Marty is not called the “father of positive psychology” for no reason. To many, he is one of the leading researchers in the whole field of psychology. Marty is a lead educator, researcher, and author of several bestselling books that make positive psychology accessible to everyone interested.
Co-Founder: Sir Anthony Seldon
Sir Anthony Seldon, Vice-Chancellor of The University of Buckingham since 2015, is one of Britain’s leading contemporary historians, educationalists, commentators and political authors.
He was a transformative head for 20 years, first of Brighton College and then Wellington College. He is author or editor of over 40 books on contemporary history, including the inside books on the last four Prime Ministers, was the co-founder and first director of the Institute for Contemporary British History, is co-founder of Action for Happiness, honorary historical adviser to 10 Downing Street, UK Special Representative for Saudi Education, a member of the Government’s First World War Culture Committee, was chair of the Comment Awards, is a director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Chair of the National Archives Trust, is patron or on the board of several charities, founder of the Via Sacra Western Front Walk, and was executive producer of the film Journey’s End. He appeared on the Desert Island Discs in 2016. For the last fifteen years he has given all his money from writing and lecturing to charity.
He has three children; his wife of 34 years, Joanna, died of cancer in December 2016.
Chair: Mike Buchanan
Mike Buchanan is the Executive Director of HMC, the English-speaking world’s oldest association of Head Teachers.
From 2005-2018 he was Head of Ashford School in the UK where he oversaw its transformation from a small girls’ school to a thriving all-age, co-educational day/boarding, independent school of over 1,000 children and young people. Mike has experience in secondary education, all-through schools and boarding, and has held a variety of leadership posts in London and elsewhere. He helped to establish three new, state-funded schools in London and Kent. He is or has been a trustee of several independent and state schools in the UK and internationally, a trustee of a children’s charity, a Reporting Inspector, a UK National Leader of Education and a qualified Executive Coach. He was elected as a Founding Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching in 2018 and became Chair of the International Positive Education Network (UK/Europe) shortly thereafter.
Events Director: Ian Picken
Ian has been involved with IPEN from soon after its foundation, working on the very first event in 2016, and all subsequent events. He is now developing and managing all IPEN events.
Ian’s first foray into the world of education was in 2011 when he began his 5-year tenure as Joint Festival Director of the Sunday Times Festival of Education at Wellington College where he helped to develop what started as a modest conference into the UK’s premier education forum for thought leadership and CPD.
Through his company Engaging Education and Events Ltd, Ian is now working on education projects across four continents, fulfilling his passionate belief that every child should have equal access to an education that will unlock their individual potential, prepare them for a lifetime of opportunity and positively contribute to a united global community. Events include the Festival of Positive Education, The Ultimate Wellbeing in Education series, The Happy Child Summit and The Confident Child Summit, and others. Ian has also edited and distributes a range of wellbeing journals for students and teachers.