Richard Burkhill | Director of Digital Learning
Rugby School Thailand

Richard has been teaching K - 12 ICT, Computing and Computer Science for the last 13 years, starting in UK public secondary schools to British international schools in Beijing and now Thailand. Over this time, Richard has been fortunate enough to be tasked with introducing first time digital departments, launch 1:1 device programmes, lead training and strategy from a whole school perspecitve and is currently involved at group level, with international collaborations on simplyfying and integrating education technology from robotics, to AI. Currenlty teaching Year 7 and 8 students, this remains his number 1 priority where he is also helping rewrite an all-through Computing curriculum for use in Year 1 - 9. Student voice and digital wellbeing are passionate topics to Richard. With the help of his team, a 30-strong student tech team, with a majority female cohort, has been created who are involved in everything from tech support, school events and productions, podcasting and digital strategy. Collaborating with other international schools as well as wellbeing professionals, Richard is integrating digital wellbeing into existing personal, social and health education. Richard has launch the AI Profile on a school wide level, with the aim of providing a what, when and how to use AI in lessons for both staff and students, drawing from international expertise and exisitng learner profile characteristics. Prior to teaching, Richard ran an I.T. development and support company for 6 years in the UK. During this time, he was lucky enough to be involved in 1:1 tutoring which sparked his motivation for teaching. He describes teaching as follows: “For me, teaching is about those moments that for people in the profession, are ‘everyday’ but to a child, are game changing; the words of advice, the introduction of something new, the ‘wow’ moment - the part you didn’t even realise had inspired someone to do better, believe in better and make a better world. It really is the most influential and powerful job in the world - a responsibility that can never be underestimated or taken for granted.”