About

Allen Heard, Father of 3 and a tech-savvy ICT/Computer Science teacher originally from Hull, now residing in North Wales. He lives with his beautiful wife Mary, his eldest son Lincoln, and his two daughters, Aurora and Aurelia. Allen has been with his wife since meeting in Hull in 1999.

Allen sailed the seas in his early working life working for Royal Caribbean International, visiting the exotic Caribbean Islands as well as spending time in Miami and Bermuda.

From an early age Allen had a keen interest in computing, he started programming at the age of 14 on a Spectrum +3. (a high-tech computer at the time)

After completing a degree in Computer Science at Bangor university, Allen worked for a software house in North Wales before relocating to London to work as an office manager for an IT training company. Allen eventually found his way to teaching,  developing his craft at several schools in North Wales.

Allen Heard is Head of ICT/Computing, and Business at Ysgol Bryn Elian. He is an innovative forward thinker who has successfully developed a range of resources to improve teaching, learning, and behaviour. Allen works closely with other IT teachers and the IT Manager to organise these events.

As a computer scientist, Allen is keen to use technology to provide deep learning experiences that stretch beyond the norm. Allen was the first teacher in Wales to develop a dedicated Minecraft club to teach things like, community, respect, collaborative working, problem solving and creativity, and also developed an App (Escape from Byron Bay) to teach Interactive Fiction to KS3 students as a means of improving literacy. Attending a number of teach-meets across North Wales, Allen has shared his work on cloud based storage, digital leaders, Sonic Pi and Minecraft as well as delivering keynotes to empower teachers across the region in the use of Web 2.0 technologies to engage with students and share his experiences.

Allen has also developed behaviour monitoring  software that is currently in use in Ysgol Bryn Elian. The impact of which has seen behavioural incidents in school reduced by 63% over an 18 month period.

Allen was announced as one of the 2014 Silver Person Teaching Award Winners for Outstanding use of Technology in Education. He visited London in June 2014 for a celebration at the Houses of Parliament with the other winners and then on to the final, again in London in October 2014.

Allen has organised and delivered a range of CPD for teachers to help them prepare for the new computing curriculum. As a Digital Pioneer for Welsh Govt, he helped write the Digital Competence Framework, specifically the computational thinking aspect and works as an ambassador for the DCF as well as working with school across wells in the teaching and delivery of computer science.