Pivotal Education Ltd is an established and successful Training Consultancy. Our experienced trainers work with a huge variety of teachers, students and business people in diverse settings. From schools in challenging situations to the top independent schools, from early years to adult. Pivotal training inspires, changes expectations and engages people in learning.

By Post: Pivotal Education 16 Penn House Jennery Lane Burnham, Bucks SL1 8BN

By Phone: General Enquiries & Admin Tel/Fax: 0207 0001735

By Email: General office contact ask@pivotaleducation.com Office Manager: Ellie Dix ellie@pivotaleducation.com

Paul Dix,  Lead Trainer, Director and Founding partner

Mike Akers, Pivotal Trainer

Ollie Frith, Pivotal Trainer

Graeme Rose, Pivotal Trainer

Tim Prior, Pivotal Trainer

Joe May, Pivotal Trainer

Ellie Dix, Training Director

Sandra Stonfer, PA to the Directors

Amy Rai Ward, Marketing and Administration

Paul Dix BEd (Hons) Cantab
Trainer and Managing Director

Paul trained in Drama at Homerton College, Cambridge and has worked in Primary and Secondary Schools in London, Nuneaton and Birmingham. As a teacher and manager Paul has led a Drama and Expressive Arts Department through and out of Special Measures, managed a thriving Creative Arts Faculty in a large three site inner city school, founded a Youth Theatre and managed a fringe venue for Birmingham. 

Paul leads Drama courses for SFE, Keynote Education and the Welsh Exam Board. He is a visiting lecturer on ITT courses at Warwick, Birmingham, Bristol, Bath, UCE, Oxford Brookes and Portsmouth and leads training for Bristol Drama teachers. His work for individual institutions ranges from training Drama teachers at Newton Aycliffe Secure Unit Co Durham to linking Physical Theatre with Multiple Intelligences at Downe House School, Berkshire.

Paul’s performance work uses mask, puppetry, physical theatre and physical tricks to weave engaging stories for outdoor spaces; turning the street into a theatre. A regular performer on the high street at the Edinburgh Fringe festival and at festivals throughout Europe Paul attracts and holds large crowds. He has appeared on ITV1, BBC, GMTV and Teachers TV.

Mike Akers BA Hons (PGCE)
Writer, Director & Trainer

Mike has been involved in education for over ten years. Whilst working as a teacher he became Literacy Co-ordinator and Head of Juniors at a large Bristol primary school. He left full-time teaching four years ago to pursue his writing and theatre career.

Since then he has worked extensively with Travelling Light Theatre Company and was their first Education Officer. For Bristol Old Vic (BOV) Education Department he has toured primary schools with a drugs awareness show, worked as a director on the summer theatre course and run "Write Here, Write Now" a project designed to develop new writing talent for 16 to 21 year olds.

Mike has co-written two large scale musical shows for BOV Youth Theatre, "Mumbo's Child" and "Doctor Quirkey's Good Time

Mike has been working with Pivotal since 2002.

Ollie Frith
Street Performer, Director, Trainer & NLP Practitioner

Ollie studied theatre at St Mary’s University, graduating in 2000. After co-founding Absolute Characters street and site specific Theatre Company in 2001, he went on to train in Accelerated Learning and in 2004 completed his practitioner training in Neuro linguistic programming. Ollie has performed and created street theatre internationally in countries such as Germany, Spain, Poland and Japan. He regularly runs both theatre workshops and brain training workshops throughout the UK. Ollie creates environment specific theatre such as Halloween terror mazes encouraging audiences to fully evolve themselves in theatrical experience. Being drawn to the Theatre of Play Ollie combines a lively performance style with accelerated learning technique to encourage people of all ages to reach their full potential.

Ollie started working with Pivotal in 2006.

Graeme Rose
Touring Actor and Theatre Maker

Graeme is a freelance actor-teacher and theatre-maker, specialising in devised theatre for unusual locations. A founder-member of Stan's Cafe Theatre and The Resurrectionists Music-Theatre Co. Graeme has toured nationally and internationally with a range of companies including Bodies in Flight, Talking Birds and Red Shift Theatre Co., for whom he is a Board Member.

He works regularly with The Playhouse, devising and delivering Theatre in Education programmes to schools in the West Midlands. He has been recently appointed Education Co-ordinator for Stan's Cafe, helping to manage and deliver projects through the Creative Partnerships programme.

Graeme has been working with Pivotal since 2002.

Tim Prior
Actor, Trainer and Director

Tim is an actor and  workshop practitioner with many years experience performing and teaching various theatrical styles and techniques including: physical theatre, mask, pantomime, forum theatre, impro/devising and role-play. He has been on tour in shows across Europe, incuding Germany, Italy and Latvia, and has performed several times at the Bristol Old Vic, and at the Edinburgh Festival.
Tim has directed and co-devised shows for Travelling Light Youth Theatre in Bristol (performances at Bristol New Vic, and The Egg- Bath Theatre Royal Youth Theatre), and has helped create Forum Theatre pieces for Transparent Theatre, performing them to inner city youth centres and schools around Bristol.

Tim has worked with Pivotal since 2005.

Joe May BA (hons), PGCE
Street Clown, Teacher & Trainer

'The best street show I have seen' Steven Berkoff, Edinburgh 2006

Joe studied Drama with Philosophy at The University of East Anglia. He trained as an actor, writer and director at the Lecoq International Theatre School in Paris. He has been working in professional theatre, ranging from mask, to clown, Shakespeare and street theatre since 1988.

He has devised and performed work in the UK, France, Pakistan and the USA. Joe's appetite for working with young people was whetted through working in Theatre-in-Education throughout France. He then worked in Pakistan designing a drama and arts curriculum, and training local teachers in active learning and drama techniques.

Joe returned to the UK to train for the PGCE in English at The University of Bristol. He then joined the team at Manor Park School in Nuneaton. During his three years there Joe was identified as a key player in the team which turned round a 'failing' secondary school (Head of English, Head of Literacy, Head of Assessment, Head of Creative Arts).Joe moved to Bristol as Head of Creative Arts at The Grange School, where he has lead the team building this new faculty. Results across the faculty are among the highest in South Gloucestershire.

Joe co founded Pivotal Education in 2001. He is a touring performer and workshop leader at major festivals spending six months in Australia and six months in the UK (May - October).

Ellie Dix BA (Hons), PGCE
Training Director

Ellie studied Drama and Theatre Arts at Birmingham University, graduating in 1997.  Ellie then worked as a director for a youth theatre company in Merseyside, teaching many drama classes and directing large-scale productions.  Ellie has also worked extensively with teenagers in America – in a residential summer camp (as Head of Drama and a Senior Counsellor) and as the Teen Counsellor on a cruise ship. 

After finishing her PGCE, Ellie was appointed Head of Drama in a secondary school in Wolverhampton EAZ.  Ellie set up the drama department from scratch in a very challenging environment.  She taught drama to all KS3 pupils and ran a GCSE Drama course.  83% of Ellie's first intake of GCSE students achieved grades A*-C.   She also directed many spotlight performances and large-scale productions within the school and coached students for Trinity drama exams.  Ellie sat on the Standardisation committee for the PGCE Secondary (Drama and Music) course at UCE.

Ellie has been a director of Pivotal Education since 2004.  She is a published writer, being the driving force behind Pivotal drama schemes of work, and having an article on "Active Maths" published in Primary Mathematics.

Sandra Stonfer BA (Hons), PGCE
PA to the Directors

Sandra is a native Italian who was awarded specialist accountancy qualifications at school. Also during this time, she discovered a passion for English language and literature, which led her to the University of Trento where she graduated in foreign languages and literature. After university, Sandra was employed for a driving school as secretary, and quickly became promoted to driving theoretical teacher and driving instructor.

Sandra has become skilled at customer service, through her work experience in a variety of sectors, enabling her to quickly adopt the Pivotal ethos of putting the client first. Looking for new experiences and challenges, Sandra moved abroad to join the Pivotal team.