About
There is a quality of attention that becomes possible when people feel genuinely seen, when there is space to think slowly, and when creativity is invited into the room.
In that space, something opens up. Ideas that felt stuck begin to move. People connect with what they actually value, not just what they think they should say. Groups who felt stuck in conflict discover that they have been speaking the same hope in different languages. Schools find that when staff feel well and connected, pupils do too. Organisations discover that their structure and their purpose don't have to be at war.
This is what I work towards, in classrooms, in strategy sessions, in one-to-one conversations. Not a fixed destination, but a set of conditions. When those conditions are right, change happens not because it is imposed from outside, but because it emerges from within.
I am Ollie Briggs - educator, artist, coach, evaluator, and organisational development practitioner. For fifteen years I have worked at the intersection of creativity, learning and change: as a teacher, as the founder and co-director of a youth arts organisation, as a researcher, and as a consultant to arts, education and community organisations across the UK.
My practice is grounded in the belief that creativity is not a luxury or a subject, it is a way of being with complexity. It is how we make meaning, how we imagine differently, and how we build the kinds of relationships that can hold real change.
Everything I do, whether I am supporting a school to develop creative pedagogies, coaching a leader through burnout, designing an evaluation framework, or facilitating an organisation through a strategic shift, is rooted in this understanding.
What connects all of my work
Whether I am working with a primary school teacher, a charity director, or a whole organisation navigating change, the same conditions matter:
- Connection to self - clarity about values, capacity for honest reflection, a sense of meaning in the work
- Connection to others - relational trust, genuine dialogue, the ability to hold complexity together
- Connection to the wider context - understanding the systems and structures we're working in, and imagining how they might be different
When these conditions are present, organisations develop strategies that actually reflect their values. Leaders find sustainable ways of holding their roles. Schools become places where staff and pupils are genuinely curious and alive to learning. Communities build the collective power to shape their own futures.
When they're absent, even the best intentions get stuck.
How I work
I draw on arts-based and participatory methods - visual mapping, making, movement, creative dialogue - that invite ways of thinking beyond the purely analytical or verbal. These aren't extras or icebreakers. They are tools that surface what surveys and spreadsheets can't: the felt sense of a culture, the unarticulated values of a group, the imaginative possibility of a different way forward.
I am also a certified Level 7 coach, an experienced evaluator, and a Visiting Lecturer at UCL/IOE and Research Fellow at Goldsmiths University. I bring rigour as well as warmth, and I am as comfortable with strategic frameworks as I am with a room full of Post-it notes and curiosity.
My approach is relational, flexible and responsive, led by what each context genuinely needs, rather than a pre-packaged methodology.
Who I work with
My work spans four interconnected areas:
Schools & Education Settings - Supporting teachers, school leaders and creative practitioners to develop arts-rich, co-creative approaches to curriculum, pedagogy and school culture. Including staff wellbeing and curriculum development consultancy. → [Education Consultancy]
Arts, Community & Charity Organisations - Facilitating strategy, culture-building, values work and organisational development for charities, CICs and community groups, particularly those rooted in social change. → [Organisational Development]
Leaders & Practitioners — One-to-one and team coaching for educators, arts leaders, founders and practitioners navigating complexity, change or the weight of caring work. → [Coaching]
Projects & Programmes — Designing and delivering creative, participatory evaluation for arts, learning and social justice projects. → [Evaluation]
The underpinning
For those who want to go deeper: my practice is informed by emergent strategy (adrienne maree brown), feminist and anti-colonial pedagogy, critical arts education, and somatic and arts-based approaches to knowledge. I believe that what we practise at the small scale sets the pattern for the larger scale - that the quality of a classroom, a meeting, a coaching conversation matters, because it is in these small moments that culture is made and unmade.
I hold a commitment to justice not as a fixed ideology, but as an ongoing orientation: towards equity, towards the voices that are most often unheard, and towards building conditions where everyone can think and act with greater freedom.
You can read more about my research, writing and practice in [the blog], or explore my work with [Arts Education Exchange] and [Tend Toward Justice].
Organisations and people I've worked with include: See Me Play, The Line, Arts in Ramsgate, Neurodivergent Friends Thanet, Essex Youth Services, Quench Gallery, Dan Scott, Everyday Plastic, University of Illinois, Kings College London, Goldsmiths University, NSEAD, Sketchbook Circle, Institute of Education
Feedback:
"Working with Ollie has been transformative for us at NDFT. As a fully neurodivergent team building something with no real blueprint, we had the skills and drive but were getting stuck on how to turn that into clear, trusting ways of working.
Ollie created a space where we could see what each of us brings, understand how our differences fit together, and design ways of collaborating that work for our brains. He never arrived with a formula or imposed solutions and instead held the space, asked the right questions, and guided us to uncover our own answers.
His creative and flexible approach was exactly what we needed. Standard methods rarely fit a team like ours, and our needs shift as we work. Ollie stayed responsive and able to shift things around smoothly and in a supportive way, to whatever surfaced. He brought inventive exercises and tools that helped us cut through noise, get to the essence of things, and explore ideas in a playful, low-pressure way, and it's inspiring us to help us think differently in how we run NDFT, and how to find our own ways.
One of the most powerful moments came when we realised, through Ollie’s facilitation, that many of the “conflicts” we felt were actually shared hopes expressed in different languages. That insight changed how we listen and move forward together.
We’ve come out of this process with stronger trust, sharper focus, and practical methods we’ll keep using. If you need someone who can hold complex, human work with depth, clarity, and creativity, and help you find solutions that truly belong to you, Ollie is absolutely exceptional."
"We have worked with Ollie over several months. Ollie has really helped us to open up our thinking, reflect and plan forward. Ollie spent time really listening to us and understanding our organisation, and then helped us to implement systems, strategies and ways of working that reflect our values as a Neurodivergent-affirming organisation, as well as our team’s needs. These kind of spaces to think as an organisation are too rare, and it has been blessing and a huge support to have Ollie's thoughtful, creative and responsive guidance when we needed it most."
"Working with Ollie has helped us so much. It feels extremely rare to find accessible structural support that isn’t grossly ableist. Ollie spent time really listening to us and understanding our organisation, and then helped us design neurodivergent-affirming governance systems and strategies that work for us. It’s exactly what we needed!"
"Ollie’s warm and open approach was invaluable in helping me work through my priorities regarding ways to move forward in my career. His approach empowered me to find value in my work, to allow this value to lift my expectations for the future, and to help me formulate concrete plans."
"Working with Ollie was of great support both personally and organisationally - he held the space for us in a generous, compassionate and safe way, designing sessions which allowed us to process through a lot and come out with some tangible outcomes for the future of us individually and collectively.” Holly Sutcliffe
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