Shahed Ahmed

Shahed Ahmed is headteacher of Elmhurst Primary School, Forest Gate, a very large, highly successful primary school in the heart of London’s East End. He also supports other schools as a Local Leader of Education. The school has been judged outstanding by Ofsted.

Peter Barnes

Peter Barnes is headteacher of Oakgrove School, Milton Keynes. The school was rated as outstanding by Ofsted in 2010 with Peter’s leadership described as ‘inspirational’. Peter holds four separate degrees in subjects including English and law, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Chartered Institute of Management.

Dame Yasmin Bevan

Dame Yasmin Bevan is Executive Principal and headteacher of Denbigh High School and Challney High School for Boys in Luton. In 2005 Dame Yasmin, who is a National Leader of Education, was a winner of the RAF-sponsored Teaching Awards Headteacher of the Year in a Secondary School in the East of England. She has chaired the Department for Education’s Secondary Heads Reference Group since March 2010 and received a DBE for services to education in 2007. Following her appointment at Denbigh, Dame Yasmin oversaw significant changes to the quality of teaching and learning across the school, leading it to become one of the most successful schools in the country. In 2009, Denbigh High School won the Times Educational Supplement's Secondary School of the Year award.

Mike Harris

Appointed in October 2006, Mike Harris is head of education and skills policy at the Institute of Directors (IoD), with responsibility for the development of IoD policy towards primary, secondary, further and higher education, as well as the skills and training agenda. He is also the policy unit's head of operations, with management responsibilities relating to the department's administration and strategic planning.

Mike has contributed oral and written evidence to committees of both Houses of Parliament. He sits on the Advisory Forum of the National Higher Education STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) Programme and is a member of the campaign board of the Royal Statistical Society’s ‘getstats’ campaign. He is also the policy editor of the IoD’s quarterly policy journal, Big Picture.

Jean Humphrys (observer)

Jean Humphrys is Interim Director of Education and Care at Ofsted. She oversees the development of frameworks, policy and guidance through four teams: Maintained Schools; Independent and Boarding Schools; Initial Teacher Education; and the Early Years and Childcare team, including registration and enforcement. 

Since joining in 1997, Jean has held several posts and helped manage major changes to the way Ofsted inspects schools and early years provision. Before taking up her post as an HMI, Jean was a local authority adviser. She has extensive teaching experience and was headteacher of two schools.

Patrick Leeson (observer)

Patrick Leeson is Education and Care Director at Ofsted. Mr Leeson has held the post since September 2009, before which he was Director of Learning and Children’s Services at the London Borough of Kingston upon Thames. Mr Leeson started his career as a secondary school teacher of English and drama, and has been a headteacher, inspector and local authority head of school improvement, before becoming a local authority Director of Education. He is a past chair of the Association of London Directors of Children’s Services (ALDCS) and was also on the national council for the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS). He will be an observer on the Advisory Committee.

John D F Martin MA

John Martin is a headteacher with twenty years’ experience; he has taken Castle Hill Juniors from a position of threatened closure to being consistently oversubscribed. In December 2010 the school was graded by Ofsted as outstanding. He has supported numerous schools in the capacity of consultancy/interim head during this period. In 2003 John was seconded for a year to the Department for Education as a strategic consultant with responsibility for the South East of England. He has been a trustee of the national charity Hti and is a trust forum member of this body.

John now works closely with Winchester University, and is a Common Purpose Graduate.

Bernice McCabe

Bernice McCabe has been headteacher of North London Collegiate (an independent school) since 1997. Mrs McCabe is also co-director of the Princes’ Teaching Institute (PTI). Mrs McCabe has 20 years' experience as a headteacher and was previously head at Chelmsford County High School (a state-maintained grammar school). Before that she worked for 16 years in mixed comprehensive schools in London and Bristol.

John McIntosh OBE

John McIntosh retired in December 2006 after nearly 30 years as headteacher of The London Oratory School, a voluntary-aided Catholic school in central London. He was a member of the National Curriculum Council from 1990 to 1993 and has been actively involved in several thinktanks concerned with education throughout his career.

Ruth Miskin

Ruth Miskin is a leading authority on teaching children to read, and is a proponent of synthetic phonics. She has a background in teaching and was a headteacher for 12 years. She has now developed her own programme ‘Read Write Inc.’ and has worked with the Government as an advisor on literacy.

Tim Oates

Tim Oates has been Director of Assessment Research and Development at Cambridge Assessment since 2006. Previously, Mr Oates worked at the Qualifications and Curriculum Agency as head of Research and Statistics. Mr Oates will be taking up a part-time secondment with the Department for Education to lead the National Curriculum Review Expert Panel.

Joe Prendergast

Joe Prendergast is headteacher of Wennington Hall School, Lancaster, a day and residential secondary community special school. All students have a statement of special educational need, with the primary category being behavioural, emotional and social need. Many students also have additional learning difficulties and disabilities, including attention deficit and hyperactive disorders, autistic spectrum disorders and speech and language difficulties. The award-winning school has been graded outstanding on three occasions by Ofsted, citing the quality of teaching, care and visionary leadership. In 2010 Wennington Hall School was a finalist in the TES Special School of the Year Award.

Heather Rockhold

Heather Rockhold recently retired as headteacher of Lauriston Primary School, Hackney. Her teaching experience covers the entire primary age range and specialist work with secondary pupils with emotional and behavioural difficulties. She taught in Hackney for 35 years and was headteacher of Lauriston for 20 years. She won the Ted Wragg Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2007. She has been a non-executive director on the board of the Learning Trust, Hackney’s education authority, for eight years. Her particular areas of interest in education are creativity, boys’ achievement, inclusion and primary/secondary transition. Ms Rockhold is a well-known speaker on creativity in the curriculum and a voice for national bodies such as Creative Partnerships. Ms Rockhold is also acting as an adviser to the review of the Early Years Foundation Stage.

Professor Nigel Thrift

Professor Nigel Thrift took up his role as the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Warwick in July 2006. He joined Warwick from the University of Oxford where he was made head of the Division of Life and Environmental Sciences in 2003, before becoming Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research in 2005. Professor Thrift is one of the world’s leading geographers and social scientists and has, during his academic career, been the recipient of a number of distinguished academic awards, including the Royal Geographical Society Victoria Medal for contributions to geographic research in 2003, and Distinguished Scholarship Honors from the Association of American Geographers in 2007. He is co-author, author or co-editor of over 35 books.