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Al Bertani - Senior Associate
Al is The Innovation Unit's international senior associate. He currently works as a consultant focusing on: leadership and organisation development; professional learning; large-scale change; strategic and policy planning and development. Al spent the last third of his career working on urban school reform in support of the Chicago Public Schools, having served as: a Senior Researcher for the Urban School Leadership Program with the University of Illinois at Chicago; Chief Officer for Professional Development with Chicago Public Schools; Senior Executive Director for Chicago Leadership Academies for Supporting Success (CLASS); and Co-Director of Schools and Leadership Development with the Center for School Improvement at the University of Chicago. During his thirty-six years in education, he divided his time between working in public schools and higher education, having served as a classroom teacher, principal, assistant superintendent, college professor, university administrator, and senior research associate. Al has consulted with schools, districts, boards of education, colleges, universities, federally funded projects and professional organisations both nationally and internationally. His most recent work has included: leading the consultancy support for the Global Education Leaders Program; chairing the Transition team for the Urban Education Institute at the University of Chicago; and facilitating strategic planning for the Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago. Al regularly presents papers, workshops and institute programs for numerous professional organisations. He has authored articles, research reports and book chapters regarding staff development, systemic change and strategic planning. Al is a past president of the Illinois Staff Development Council and former member of the Board of Trustees for the National Staff Development Council. Alec Patton - Researcher and Project Coordinator
Alec is working with The Innovation Unit as a researcher and project coordinator, primarily focused on Learning Futures, which is developing ways of increasing secondary school pupil engagement with a group of partner schools throughout the country. Alec has previously worked on a range of research projects in education and the arts since receiving a PhD from the University of Sheffield. He has co-curated an exhibition on post-war British Theatre at the British Library, run a project called Teaching the Talk that gave undergraduates the opportunity to conduct oral-history interviews as part of the University of Sheffield/British Library Theatre Archive project. He has also worked on the Learning, Research and Teaching (LRT) project, which is developing new ways of integrating research and teaching in Higher Education. Alec has also conducted research into parliamentary practice for Tom Steinberg, head of MySociety. Aviv Katz - Senior Service Designer
Aviv has extensive experience of working as a service designer - planning and running creative and collaborative projects - mainly in the public sector. Prior to joining The Innovation Unit he worked for Engine Service Design, where he led innovation projects with several Local Authorities, including the Social Innovation Lab for Kent (SILK). Before that he worked at the Design Council, developing and running projects spanning business, innovation, and design, and was instrumental in the development of a national skills strategy for the design sector. Aviv is a trained designer and social researcher. Claire McEneaney - Project Manager
Claire is Project Manager for the Transforming Early Years project dealing with all aspects of project management for this programme of work. She also runs The Innovation Unit Internship Programme, managing recruitment and work allocation. Prior to her current role, Claire has also worked as PA & Office Manager for The Innovation Unit. Claire has previously worked in both accountancy and retail roles, before joining The Innovation Unit in 2006. She has a BSc (Hons) in Psychology from the University of Nottingham and retains a keen interest in the subject. She has undertaken voluntary work at Jigsaw 4u, a charity which supports families and young people after a family bereavement. David Albury - Director
Since January 2001, David has been an independent organisational, management and policy consultant. He specialises in strategy formation and consequential organisational development, in leadership and improving organisational performance, in organisational and systemic change in public services, and in establishing and developing public-private sector partnerships. From May 2002 to January 2005, David was also a Principal Adviser in the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit, playing a leading role in a number of projects including long-term reviews and strategies for education and health, the path-breaking analysis of the strategic issues facing London, an analysis of - and recommendations for the removal of - systemic causes of unnecessary bureaucracy, and system design principles for public services. He was co-author, with Geoff Mulgan, of the highly influential report on Innovation in the Public Sector. He also advised David Milband and the Department of Communities and Local Government on development of the Thames Gateway Strategic Framework; chaired a Review of the National College for School Leadership; advising Ministers and senior officials in the Department for Education and Skills on developing and implementing policy for local education and children's services. He has also led projects within the NHS relating to Primary Care Trusts. Previously David was a Senior Fellow at the Office for Public Management, a visiting Research Fellow at the London School of Economics; Director of Corporate Strategy at Thames Valley University; Dean of Educational development and Director of the Docklands project at NE London Polytechnic (now University of East London). He has a BSc (Hons) Logic-with-Physics - from the University of Sussex from 1969 to 1972 - and he has also done postgraduate studies in Paris and Sussex on technological and organisational development and the management of innovation and change. Throughout his career David has published extensively, been the keynote speaker at many major conferences and been interviewed several times on television and radio. He has undertaken a wide variety of leadership and management development programmes and participated regularly in a large range of policy and organisational development round-tables, workshops and seminars, as well as numerous private reports and presentations to Government Ministers, senior officials and other clients. David is also Member of the International Board of KaosPilots, Denmark - International School of New Business Design and Social Innovation; Member of the Advisory Board for the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery. He is a former Member of the West London Leadership Board/Park Royal Partnership and a former Member of the Advisory Board for ESRC Programme on Information and Communications Technologies (PICT). David Jackson - Partner
Previously a Senior Associate, in which role he was Lead Consultant to the Next Practice in System Leadership programme. Working also with the National College for School Leadership, this work introduced new approaches to leadership and governance for school collaboratives, multi-service provision and locality working. David has also led the development of the Innovation Unit's Applied Next Practice work - programmes which utilise learning from Next Practice innovation to design, with Local Authorities or school collaboratives, unique solutions to significant local challenges and aspirations. To date these have included, in various combinations, large-scale system change, approaches to locality transformation, integrated service implementation, community engagement and mobilisation, system leadership, multi-school trusts and new forms of governance. For the last 10 years David has led large-scale programmes supporting leadership development, system leadership approaches and the implementation of school-to-school collaborative practices. In 2000, he was appointed as NCSL's first Director of Research and School Improvement. In that role he oversaw the development of New Visions, now the national program for England's annual cohort of 4,000 new headteachers. In 2002 he became the Director of NCSL's Networked Learning Group and a Strategic Director of the College. The Group's best known programme involved the support of 134 Networked Learning Communities (1,550 schools) across England over a five year period. It also promoted innovation in leadership development design, collaborative leadership approaches, network leadership, and models of brokerage and capacity-building across Local Authorities. David began teaching in 1971. For 14 years, until 2000, he was headteacher of Sharnbrook Upper School and Community College, at that time one of the country's most innovative and successful schools. David has taught on Leadership Masters programmes at the Universities of Cambridge and Nottingham, and on Cambridge's International MPhil programme in Educational Reform and Teacher Development. He has published widely on a range of themes - leadership, school improvement, innovation, enquiry, student voice and Networked Learning Communities - and has supported school and system improvement programmes both in the UK and internationally. David Price - Senior Associate
David is an experienced education consultant, project manager, strategic adviser and public speaker. After working in the music industry, he became involved in education in 1991, lecturing in adult, further and higher education. In 1994 he helped establish Sir Paul McCartney's Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, where he was Director of Learning for 7 years. Since then, he has led national projects in arts and education in the UK (most notably the Musical Futures and Learning Futures projects for the Paul Hamlyn Foundation) and advised companies, third sector organisations and government departments internationally. His public speaking work has taken him all over the UK and Europe, Australia, New Zealand, USA and China. The focus of his work is primarily about finding innovative ways to engage learners through more democratic and more relevant forms of education. In June 2008, he was awarded the O.B.E. for services to education. Denis Mongon - Senior Associate
Denis Mongon's main interest is in the development of personal and institutional networks which nurture multi-agency activity and encourage community participation which in turn can raise the ambition and achievement of young people, especially in economically poor neighbourhoods. Denis often works with his wife Pauline, who had been headteacher of a 'national top ten', all ability, secondary school and later two schools in difficulty before setting up her own independent company. Denis's career began as a secondary school teacher in Lambeth before he moved to work with some of London's more difficult pupils, first in a Remand Home near Shepherds Bush and later in a day school for 'maladjusted pupils' in Camden. He became a special school headteacher, director if a multi-disciplinary educational guidance centre in hackney and member of the Inner London inspectorate service based in Greenwich. In 1989 Denis moved to Hertfordshire where he held second tier posts in the Education Department until 1997. He was then seconded the Chief Executive's office to work on a review of all the Council's services. This review led then to the novel integration of the Education Department and Children's Social Services. Denis's freelance work has included a wide range of projects and he has enjoyed a variety of roles in national and local contexts. This has included a time as 'Children's Services Change Advisor' to the Chief Executive in Tower Hamlets and other local government roles. He has worked for Ofsted, most recently on developing its 'well being' criteria and has led for the Audit Commission on a number of local authority inspections. He led a three year network project across 21 local authorities for NCSL. He has also worked with UNICEF in Turkish prisons and for the British Council in Malawi's schools. In between this, contracts with DCSF, SSAR, IDeA, TDA (and many more) have allowed hi to work with some terrific adults and young people. In 1976 he was seconded for a year to Oxford University where he began research in 'maladjustment'which eventually led to a PhD from South Bank University. Between his operational appointments, he has held posts at the Universities of Cambridge, London and Manchester, where he is now senior research fellow. His recent work has included publications which describe school leadership associated with white working class achievement, school leadership creating Public Value and newly emerging models of school leadership. Douglas Archibald - Partner & Knowledge Manager
Douglas gained over five years experience in managing large-scale organisational change as a Manager in Accenture's Human Performance Practice in London. He worked with leading global organisations in the Telco, Media, Energy, Oil and Chemicals sectors on projects covering strategic change, culture change, eLearning and knowledge management. This included a rather exciting ‘sabbatical' year spent in the London Dot.Com Launch Centre in 2001. Douglas left Accenture in 2003 to explore his interest in Organisational Learning and Knowledge Management. His first major assignment was to lead and develop the Knowledge and Innovation Network (www.ki-network.org) at Warwick Business School which, thanks to his vision and energy, is now one of the worlds leading organizational networks on Knowledge Management and Innovation. He has since worked with a number of organisations -predominantly in the public sector - to develop and implement effective KM Strategies. His recent clients included United Nations Development Program, Office of Government Commerce and the Improvement and Development Agency. More recently, he has spent an increasing focus on the role of networks and Communities of Practice to support the spread of good and innovative practice. This led to the groundbreaking project for Warwick Business School with Dr. Richard McDermott, which benchmarked the effectiveness of over 50 Communities of Practice in 10 leading global organizations, identifying nine key factors in high performing communities. Since early 2007 Douglas has spent much of his time working with The Innovation Unit to develop appropriate Knowledge Management Strategies to support the aim of spreading of innovative education practices across the school system through networks and communities. He is now a partner at The Innovation Unit and, among other things, is involved in the development of an Open Source Alliance for 21st Century Education to support this aim. Douglas holds a BA (Hons) in Business Studies from Edinburgh University and an MA in Organisation Studies with Distinction from Warwick Business School. He has published a number of articles on Networks and Communities of Practice, the latest of which is in the Nov/Dec 2008 issue of KM Review. Gareth Wynne - Partner & Company Secretary
Gareth oversees resource and contract management, analyses business development and project investment opportunities as well as leading on overall project and risk management across the Unit. In addition, he is the Company Secretary for The Innovation Unit Limited. Gareth has worked with The Innovation Unit since 2002, when it was part of the former DfES, and he was responsible for operationalising the start-up of the Unit. In 2006, he became Company Secretary. Prior to this, Gareth was a Managing Consultant with Cap Gemini Ernst & Young where he worked with a diverse range of national and international organisations (including Boots, Virgin Megastores, GlaxoSmithKline and Ocado) focusing on developing customer-centric solutions to address organisation / business needs. He has brought his experiences and insights from working in a wide range of other sectors (eg healthcare and retail pharmacy, book publishing, pharmaceutical, drinks manufacturing, e-grocery, aviation repair, entertainment, financial services and travel) to bear on the work and activities of The Innovation Unit. Particular foci included: project planning and management; designing and implementing new business processes; risk management; stakeholder management; business case development; financial analysis of opportunities; workshop facilitation; supply chain analysis, implementation of major IT systems acting as both expert business user and user acceptance testing manager. Gareth has an MBA, with Distinction, from Warwick Business School. The outcomes of his research project on how main Board Directors of FTSE 200 companies are selected, prepared and developed was reported in The Financial Times and on Radio 4's Today Programme amongst others. He is a Member of the Institute of Business Consultancy, a PRINCE2TM Practitioner and a Fellow of the RSA. Helena Renfrew-Knight - Senior Associate
Helena has 18 years of experience in strategy consultancy in the education, media and technology sectors. She holds a BA from Oxford and an MBA from INSEAD. Over the past 8 years, she has developed significant experience of education policy and the use of technology in education through her work. She has worked with The Innovation Unit and the DCSF supporting the regional consultation events on 21st Century Schools and writing sections of the final report. Helena also worked with The Innovation Unit on the Next Practice programme, supporting and challenging 10 Next Practice field trials, several of which had a significant technology component. As part of this, she worked with the Co-operative College on developing a membership model for schools and increasing parental engagement in Co-operative Trust Schools. Helena has worked with the ICT in Schools Division of the DCSF on broadband strategy, development of National Education Network, Curriculum Online, the Strategic Technologies Programme and Learning Platforms policy. Helena has previously worked with several Local Authorities on developing partnership approaches for 14-19 collaboration, community engagement and a model for locality working. She has also worked with Becta, on developing practitioners networks and on practices facilitating innovation in education. She has worked with Future Leaders on a programme focused on developing headteachers for urban, challenging schools. Her career in the commercial sector was developed at three strategy consultancies - Spectrum Strategy Consultants, Andersen Consulting and Booz Allen & Hamilton. During this time Helena worked for a large number of clients in the IT, telecoms, publishing and broadcasting sectors on particular issues relating to the economies of supply and market strategy (such as Telewest, Orange, Cable & Wireless, Reuters and Channel 4). Jane Creasy - Senior Associate
Jane has experience of educational leadership at school and national level. For nearly ten years she was head of Sir John Lawes School, a mixed 11-18 comprehensive in Hertfordshire. Students, staff and the school celebrated significant national achievements during that period, while retaining a strong commitment to inclusion and collaborative approaches. Jane left her headship in April 2002 to become a director at the National College for School Leadership (NCSL). At NCSL she co-designed and led the national New Visions programme for new headteachers. Her later work at NCSL was in the field of policy development and she led the first phase of the College's strategy on leadership succession for England's schools. Now independent, Jane works with national and regional education bodies, with private sector and third sector organisations, with local authorities and with schools. She supports organisations on leadership and organisational development, acts as a leadership coach, and designs and facilitates conferences, seminars and leadership development programmes. She is consultant advisor to the NCSL Fellowship Programme and an independent advisor to DCSF on creativity. Jane is a trustee of Centrepoint, the charity for homeless young people; a vice-chair of governors of a university; and a magistrate. John Craig - Managing Partner
John is Managing Partner of The Innovation Unit. Previously to becoming managing partner in April 2010 John was director of Innovation Exchange, which supports innovation in the third sector. The Exchange helps innovators in the third sector and commissioners of public services to identify opportunities for innovation, connect around them and collaborate to realise their potential. The Innovation Exchange has two areas of focus; excluded young people and independent living. Prior to this, John worked as a policy advisor at the Cabinet Office, both at the Office of the Third Sector, leading their work on innovation, and at the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit. During this time he contributed to Partnership in Public Services, which frames the role of the third sector in service delivery and worked and managed the relationship between the Office of the Third Sector and DfES. He has also worked as a senior researcher at Demos, the independent think-tank, where he focused on policy related to communities and public services. He is the author of Schools Out, which examines extended schools, Start with People, which looks at the role of community organisations and Production Values: Futures for professionalism. John has an MA in Education Policy from the Institute of Education. He has previously worked as a researcher at both the Home Office and the Department for Education and Employment. John is a former resident and trustee of Toynbee Hall, a settlement in East London and a former Vice-President of Oxford University Student Union. He holds a first-class degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics. Matthew Horne - Managing Partner
Matthew is Managing Partner of The Innovation Unit. He leads work on strategy and influencing government policy. His interests include innovation in education and children's services, and adult social care. He has worked with The Innovation Unit in various ways since 2003. Matthew helped set up and lead Innovation Exchange, our flagship programme for innovators from the third sector, and the Innovation Catalyst - a programme of innovation support to Local Authorities. He advises the Cabinet Office Strategy Unit on public service improvement, and has previously worked in the Strategy Unit in what is now the Department for Children, Schools and Families. Matthew has experience as a service designer in public services - having worked for RED at the Design Council, Participle, and as a Senior Researcher at DEMOS where he ran their programme on public service innovation. He has worked on a range of issues including drug and alcohol misuse, care and social relationships in old age, school leadership, police leadership, prisons, and futures thinking in education. Peter Baeck - Project Coordinator
Peter has undertaken project coordination, research and research management for a number of Innovation Unit projects, including work for Becta, Nesta and DoH. Previously to becoming project coordinator in April 2010, peter was an intern with the Radical Efficiency team, which is working with public sector innovations that deliver better quality outcomes for lower costs. Peter is from Denmark and, in addition to working at The Innovation Unit, is currently studying towards his masters degree in politics and public administration from Aalborg University. His main area of interest is public sector innovation and international climate politics. Peter's previous work experience includes a position as a member of the editorial staff at Infopaq Denmark and 6 months as an intern in the political section of the Danish Embassy in Tokyo. Raj Cheema - Project Manager, Green Next Practice
Raj is Project Manager for Innovation Exchange, which is a broker for third sector innovation. Raj organises the different strands of Innovation Exchange's work and leads on the delivery of its Festivals of Ideas and its use of multi-media. She has a keen interest in collaboration and cross-sector partnerships and in developing the Innovation Exchange's work as a broker. Raj previously worked for the Legal Proceedings team at Birmingham City Council and has undertaken voluntary work, including the Citizens Advice Bureau and Asha Project. She has a LL.M in Human Rights Law from the University of Nottingham and holds a first class degree in Law and American Studies from Keele University. Richard Harrison - Senior Associate
Richard has worked on several of The Innovation Unit's recent projects on Education and Children's Services. He led the Next Practice in System Leadership project and has been part of the teams working with Cisco on 'Education 3.0' and with DCSF on 21st Century Schools. From 1995 to 2004 Richard was a senior civil servent in successive configurations of the Department for Education, with responsibility in turn for departmental strategy and policy on school leadership, teacher training and continuing professional development. Before that, he served for 20 years as a senior civil servant in the Department of Education Group, including spells as a Director of Conciliation for ACAS and - on secondment to the Cabinet Office - leading a review of the Governments use of consultants. As an independent consultant, Richard has undertaken a series of projects for the National College of School Leadership - drafting several Corporate Plans, preparing advice for the Secretary of State on a range of issues, and producing a report on the London Leadership Strategy. He has also worked with General Teaching Council for England and the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust. Richard holds a PhD and a First Class Honours degree from the University of Southampton, and is an Associate of Demos. Rosie Raffety - Senior Associate
Rosie Raffety began her career as a secondary school teacher with a degree in English Literature and Renaissance History. She quickly realised that she was far more interested in how people learn than teaching subject related content and began a 30 year journey that has encompassed leadership roles in primary, secondary and tertiary sectors, an advisory role in a Local Authority, three regional advisory roles around policy implementation and is now running her own consultancy on change and innovation. Rosie's fascination with learning has morphed from initial questions about how young people learn to how professionals learn; from how organisations learn to how human systems adapt and innovate. Rosie has a doctorate in organisational micro-politics, with particular reference to adaptive school systems and strategies for change. From 2000 to 2005 Rosie was Academic Director at the School of Education, St Mary's University College, Twickenham, where she designed three inquiry based Masters programmes, the most recent being Leading Change and Innovation in the Public Sector. The programmes have been cited by the Training and Development Agency (TDA) as a model of high impact practitioner development in schools both nationally and internationally (a programme runs in the township of Khayelistsha, Cape Town). Since setting up her own consultancy in 2003, clients have included the National Remodelling Team, TDA, NCSL. Bath Spa University, Oxford Brookes University, The London Centre for Leadership in Learning and numerous Local Authorities, including Tower Hamlets, Wandsworth, Ealing, Hillingdon and Merton. From 2005 to 2008 Rosie was contracted as a Regional Advisor to the TDA, responsible for policy targets in extended services and workforce modernisation, working with three Government offices and a total of 67 Local Authorities across the East of England, Yorkshire and the Humber, and Greater London. Rosie has been Schools Policy Advisor to the Soil Association, currently reviewing their national Food for Life programme. Rosie led the Next Practice Communities for Learning project until March 2009, funded by DCSF and sponsored by the TDA. She is also a senior consultant for the Academy of Mental Wealth, committed to developing integrated practice to support vulnerable young people. She is a consultant to the Learning Futures project, focussing on innovative pedagogies for 21st Century Schools. Rosie is also part of the NCSL design team for Integrated System Leadership for Children's Centres Leaders, a pilot running until March 2010. In addition, she is researching System Leadership training provision across the UK, on the behalf of NCSL. She is a consultant with the Nowhere Foundation and Academy, committed to developing systemic approaches to personal and organisational learning across public and private sectors. Rosie is also Visiting Professor to the School of Education, St Mary's University College. Ruth Kennedy - Senior Associate
Ruth is a public service innovator, particularly focused on helping top-level leaders, strategists and policy makers realise the vision of effective, efficient public services designed around the needs of users. This often involves creating opportunities for people to think in new ways, in order to generate new insights and shared problem framing. Ruth and her teams then mobilise collaborative energy and commitment to shaping and delivering shared solutions. An ex-senior civil servant (inc. Cabinet Office, No10, DfES), Ruth was until Aug 2008 Director of Consulting at public sector market intelligence experts Kable, (now part of Guardian News & Media), where she led the 'Ideal Government' strand of work, including the creation of the transformative leadership experience, ThePublicOffice. In the last 12 months Ruth has been deeply involved in ‘Total Place’, designing and leading the programme in Croydon and acting as ‘External Agitator’ to the Greater Manchester pilot. Ruth is particularly excited about establishing learning cultures and embedding capabilities which lead to sustainable improvements in services, and in making the learning connections between innovations on the periphery and the mainstream 'System'. She is a Senior Associate of the Innovation Unit, and an Adviser at the Leadership Centre for Local Government. Sarah Gillinson - Head of Radical Efficiency
Sarah leads the Innovation Unit's research and practical work on Radical Efficiency, building our understanding of innovation that delivers different, better and lower cost public services and supporting leaders to develop it in practice. Simon Bracken - Intern
Having recently gained a MSc in 'Cities, Culture and Social Change' from King's College London, he has been an intern with London Citizens, working on their London Living Wage Campaign. He has also worked for Scope on their Poll Apart Campaign - which aimed to improve accessability to UK polling stations. Simon has worked in a school for a year as a Teaching Assistant. He has experience of both journalistic and creative writing, which includes writing a play for the Royal Court's young writers programme. He has a BA in philosophy from Leeds University. Sophie Byrne - Intern
Before joining Innovation Unit, Sophie was working at the Young Foundation as a social investment intern on the Learning Launchpad Fund, a fund that supports innovative projects in and out of schools. Whilst at the The Young Foundation she helped to manage the third round of applications to the fund. Sophie led on the funds external communications and online community building. Sophie also supported the launch of the First Political Memory project, that collects people's formative political memories with an aim to engaging people in politics. Sophie recently graduated from Bristol University with a defree in Politics and Sociology and she has a keen interest in education and environmental politics. Tony Mackay - Chair
Tony Mackay is Executive Director of the Melbourne based Centre for Strategic Education, Australia, a Centre focused on leading educational thinking and practice at state, national and international levels. Tony is also an Honorary Fellow in the Faculty of Education at The University of Melbourne. Tony specialises in the areas of school and system leadership, improvement and innovation. Tony's work at state, national and international levels focuses on strategic thinking and facilitation for Government bodies, education agencies, think tanks, school boards and leadership teams. It encompasses the areas of school and system leadership, improvement and innovation, teacher professionalism and curriculum and assessment policy and includes the design and implementation of Research and Development Programs and Leadership Development Programs. Tony was a founding member of the Governing Council of the National College for School Leadership in England and is a Visiting Fellow at the London Leadership Centre. He is an OECD Senior Consultant for the Schooling For Tomorrow Project, Improving School Leadership Project, and Alternative Models of Learning Project and a DEMOS International Associate. He is currently working on a number of ‘Next Practice Projects' on School Leadership and School Improvement and Reform in Australia, UK, Europe, Canada, New Zealand and Hong Kong. Tony is President of the International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement (ICSEI). Tony has a Bachelor of Economics and a Bachelor of Education from Monash University and a MA in the Economics of Education from the University of London. Tony is Deputy Chair of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER); a Board Member of The University of Melbourne, Graduate School of Education; a member of the Advisory Board of the Asia Education Foundation (AEF); a Board member of the Foundation for Young Australians; a Committee Member of the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA), and a Governing Body member of a Prep to Year 12 Melbourne school. He is President of the Australian Curriculum Studies Association. Tony is a Fellow of the Australian College of Educators (ACE) and the College's 2006 Medallist; a Fellow of the Australian Council for Educational Leaders (ACEL), the ACEL Leaders 2008 Nganakarrawa Award recipient and a Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration Australia (IPAA) (V). Valerie Hannon - Director
Valerie is member of The Innovation Unit Board. She leads the work on Education and Children's Services, and has a strong interest in the work in local government and the third (non-profit) sector. Valerie has been a Director of Education in a large county Local Authority (Derbyshire). She has worked in a broad range of Local Authorities, and was an advisor to the Local Government Association. Before joining local government, she was a senior research fellow in the University of Sheffield and led on education policy for the Equal Opportunities Commission. Her teaching experience was in secondary schools. She is a former USA Harkness Fellow. Valerie was a member of the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education, which produced the report All Our Futures (1999, DfES/DCMS). She subsequently acted as advisor to the then DfES (now DCSF), the QCA and to the Creative Partnerships programme, to promote creativity in learning, teaching and leadership. She has worked independently with a range of Local Authorities, UK public agencies, and overseas education systems interested in building innovative capacity. She is a regular contributor to international conferences and seminars on these themes, working for both the OECD and ANZSOG (Australia and New Zealand School of Government). Valerie is a Trustee of two third sector organisations working in the field of creativity and learning. |
Simon is an intern at the Innovation Unit. He is currently supporting the Radical Efficiency and Transforming Early Years projects.
Sophie is an intern at Innovation Unit, currently working on the Innovation Exchange. She is supporting the Green Next Practice.
