Passport for Every Learner’s Future Highlights from the Future Ready: Future Skills Conference

When Kim Antoniou, Founder of Auris Tech, opened the Future Ready: Future Skills Conference, she set a tone that was both urgent and hopeful.

Literacy, she argued, is not an add-on but the foundation for every learner’s future, the skill that unlocks participation, confidence and opportunity. Her work on the National Read Aloud Challenge illustrated the point: when reading becomes habitual, measurable and joyful, everything else becomes possible.

From that moment, the day’s theme was unmistakable. AI may reshape learning, but it also raises the stakes for human judgment. The question wasn’t “What can AI do?” but “What must humans still do well?”

Paddy McGrath distilled it into a line that echoed through the room:

“AI is the suit — literacy is the superpower.”

A reminder that in an age of automation, literacy is what gives learners the ability to question, interpret, challenge, and choose. It isn’t an intervention, but the baseline for agency.​

Capacity, Confidence and the Work Behind the Work

A recurring thread throughout the sessions was the gap between ideas and implementation. Many speakers pointed out that the challenge isn’t a shortage of strategies, but a shortage of the conditions that let those strategies take root.

Carol Allen, a retired educator with deep classroom experience, said it best:

“Good ideas fail without the human work required to embed them.”

That human work, teacher time, clear communication, local referrals, sustained support was repeatedly framed as the real engine of change.

Al Kingsley picked up this point from a policy perspective, urging leaders to see AI not as a shortcut, but as an invitation to rethink systems.

“AI is a moment to rethink routes, capacity and the levers we can pull.”

In other words, getting future-ready isn’t about procuring tools. It’s about enabling people.

Younger Voices Testing Assumptions

One of the most energising parts of the day came from Dylan Bolton Honey Moule and Francesca Salussolia who joined Al Kingsley on a panel, they were direct and deeply practical. They asked what change looks like in real classrooms, how digital tools can feel relevant rather than imposed, and shared how routes beyond university can open meaningful futures.

Their questions made one thing clear: strategy only matters if young people experience it. Pathways, micro-credentials, placements, mentors must be visible, accessible and aligned with what matters to learners themselves.

The panel grounded the day with a simple truth: policy lands when young people feel it.

Where Change Really Happens: Local Systems and Real-Life Examples

The afternoon sessions brought the morning’s themes to life through real case studies that showed what future-readiness looks like in practice.

A Local System That Works

Robin Harbord Strategy Development Lead at Essex County Council demonstrated how coordination across councils, schools, employers and community groups turns ambition into measurable outcomes. Their work showed what happens when place-based priorities are aligned: literacy campaigns that reach families, staff training that sticks, and clear levers that schools can actually use.

It was a reminder that system change doesn’t require scale; it requires alignment.

Amazon for Schools: Partnerships with Tangible Impact

Represented through the work of Chris Smith and Tyler Anderson-Graham, the Amazon for Schools model showed how simple, repeatable elements of modest grants, local ambassadors, volunteering, and donated resources can transform school environments.

The outcomes were real and visible: refurbished libraries, sensory rooms for pupils with additional needs, and music kits that boosted engagement. It was a practical blueprint for corporate involvement that strengthens local ecosystems rather than overshadowing them.

Designing for Attention: Behavioural Insights That Matter

Mike Lafe brought the behavioural lens. If books and screens are competing, he argued, literacy must be deliberately designed to win. That means short milestones, visible rewards, family-facing communication and minimal friction.

This wasn’t about gimmicks; it was about respecting the psychology of habit-building.

Scaling Through Trust

Louise Hill founder and Chair of gohenry, grounded the discussion in community reality. Her experience demonstrated that word-of-mouth, local advocacy and “learn by doing” approaches scale far more reliably than marketing campaigns. Trust, not messaging, is what drives sustained adoption.

Across these examples, the common denominator was unmistakable: change is relational before it is structural.

Closing Remarks from Kim Antoniou

The reality is stark: 25% of all children leave primary school unable to read at the level they need to progress in their education. That’s one in four children entering secondary school already on the back foot not because they lack potential, but because the system around them is failing to equip them.

Future Ready was created to change that trajectory. I brought educators, policymakers, and the corporate sector together in one room because literacy is not a single-sector issue, it's a shared responsibility. I’ve said many times that it isn’t the job of businesses to fund children’s education, but it is in all of our interests. These young people are our future workforce, our future innovators, and, fundamentally, our future citizens.

We also have a moral obligation to support them!

Being ‘future ready’ goes beyond a moment in time; it’s a journey. It begins when a child moves from primary to secondary school, continues as they navigate further education, and extends into how we support them once they enter the workplace. At every stage, literacy is the foundation that determines confidence, opportunity, and agency.

We have purposely designed this to be an annual event and I’m proud to have started this movement. But its power lies in the collective. 

Together, we can make sure every child has the literacy skills they need to step into their future with strength, dignity, and possibility.

A Coherent Outlook for the Future

What made the conference compelling was the coherence across speakers. Across campaigners, policymakers, practitioners and young people, the same outlook emerged:

• Literacy fuels agency.

• Engagement fuels literacy.

• Local ecosystems fuel engagement.

• And equity quietly powers everything.

Kim’s rallying opening, Lewis Bronze’s cultural framing of the evolution of learning, Al Kingsley’s system-level challenge, Carol’s classroom realism, Paddy’s equity-centred metaphor, the youth panel’s grounded questions, and the afternoon case studies all added layers to the same message.

It felt less like a collection of sessions and more like a shared direction of travel.

A big thank you to Everway, Amazon Web Services and Auris Tech; these lessons are already shaping how we work: designing reading campaigns that build daily habits, partnering locally to strengthen capacity, and creating tools that scaffold comprehension for every learner.

If your organisation is exploring place-based literacy initiatives, equity-first AI tools or scalable reading campaigns, we’d love to collaborate. Together, we can ensure literacy becomes the passport every learner carries into the future.