Practitioner Advisory Board

Rachel Boyle

Dean of Education at the Carnegie School of Education, Leeds Beckett University

Rachel is the first woman of colour to be appointed as a Dean in the university’s history. Rachel is a former Primary School teacher who spent many happy years teaching the children of Liverpool before she made the move in higher education in 2010. After ten years working at Edge Hill in Lancashire, Rachel was delighted to join the team at the Carnegie School of Education in 2020. 

Rachel’s passion and research focuses on race, racism ethnicity and education. She uses critical race theory as a theoretical framework to examine ‘race’ inequalities in society, specifically in education. The experiences she had growing up as a mixed-race child in the 1980s have underpinned Rachel’s passion for and commitment to addressing racial inequality in education. She has worked with trainee teachers to examine the impact of race, racism and ethnicity on the educational experiences of children and young people. Rachel encourages her students to develop an understanding of the position of the ‘other’ and to use their voices to ensure that the teaching profession consistently evolves to meet the needs of the children it serves.

More recently Rachel has worked across the media to provide commentary on societal issues of racism including the death of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter movement and racism within the UK. 

Megan Dixon

Primary and Early Years Specialist

Megan divides her time between several roles: Director of English for the Aspire Educational Trust (a multi-academy trust based in the North West of England), Co-Director of the Aspirer Research School based at Ash Grove Academy and lead on English and research and development for the Aspirer Teaching School. In addition to these roles, she is also a Senior Associate at the Education Endowment Foundation. 

With twenty years’ experience in the education sector, she is a senior leader, specialist literacy teacher and teacher trainer with considerable expertise in teaching children who find it hardest to learn. Prior to working at the Aspire Educational Trust, she has worked as a class teacher and middle leader, local authority consultant and school improvement advisor and teacher trainer. 

Megan is fascinated by how we can transfer research evidence into effective classroom practice. She is studying for a doctorate in psychology and works extensively with researchers to develop practical strategies to transfer their work into teaching and learning. 

She writes a monthly column for the Times Educational Supplement and is a regular contributor to other magazines, journals and publications. 

Charlotte Hacking

Learning and Programme Director at the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE)

Charlotte is an experienced teacher and senior leader and has taught across the primary school age range before holding several posts. These posts include, assistant headteacher and leadership posts in literacy, early years foundation stage, more able pupils and key stage 2. 

Charlotte was a literacy consultant within a local authority, focusing on early years, phonics and primary literacy. She is the governor of a secondary school with responsibility for teaching and learning. She has written blogs and articles for a range of publications including ‘Teach Primary’ and ‘Books for Keeps’, as well as being a contributing writer for ‘Understanding Children’s Literature’ by Nikki Gamble (4th Edition). 

Charlotte's special interests lay in early years, early reading development, and the development of writing. As well as the use of picture books and poetry to raise children's engagement and attainment. She developed and leads the CLPE's ground breaking ‘Power of Pictures’ research, investigating the impact visual literacy and illustration can have on children’s reading and writing. She has also led and developed the CLPE's ‘Power of Poetry’ research project, designed to highlight the importance of poetry as a vehicle for improving children’s engagement in and enjoyment of reading and creative writing in schools. In addition to this, Charlotte is also on the judging panel for the CLPE poetry award, CLiPPA.

Paul Jackson

Educational Consultant, Innovate Create Educate

Paul Jackson is the former Headteacher of Manorfield Primary and an accredited local leader of education. Prior to joining Manorfield, Paul was headteacher at Gallions Primary School in Newham for just over seven years and an executive headteacher across a group of primary schools in Essex.

During this time, Paul has also worked on several other projects. These projects include, working as a consultant for ‘We are what we do’ during the production of a range of materials for children, co-authoring materials for Cambridge University Press's Cambridge Maths Direct Scheme and being seconded to Newham LA as a primary maths consultant. 

Alongside his role as headteacher at Gallions, Paul previously project managed the Askit strand of the Helen Hamlyn Trust funded Open Futures initiative, working with 50 schools across the country in partnership with SAPERE to introduce 'philosophy for children' into their schools. Paul has also volunteered as a mentor to several undergraduates at Middlesex University, and has been involved in several voluntary organisations, including the Scout Association and CCHF.

Paul was a founding trustee of The Gallions Music Trust, and has previously also been a trustee at Discover Children's Story Centre in Stratford, Newham and a trustee of the National Children’s Orchestras of Great Britain. He is currently chair of The Manorfield Charitable Foundation. Paul has also been a governor at his children’s primary school. He is passionate about creative education and ensuring that all children have the very best creative and inspiring learning experiences.

Paul has written several articles for publications including the Times Educational Supplement and has spoken at a variety of conferences to audiences of teachers, educational professionals, policy-makers and members of the creative and cultural industries. 

Naheeda Maharasingam

Headteacher at Rathfern Primary School

Naheeda is a Local Leader of Education (LLE), a Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching (CCT), and Leader of Rathfern Teacher Research Network. She is steering group lead for the Embedding Race Equality work across all Lewisham schools.

Naheeda is Headteacher at Rathfern Primary School, a diverse and dynamic inner London primary school. She is passionate about values which enrich her vision and permeate her school culture, pedagogy and curriculum with a focus on disrupting the trajectory for disadvantaged pupils. 

Rathfern is a Research Hub for the CCT, lead for the Humanities Hub for Lewisham.

June O'Sullivan MBE

Chief Executive at London Early Years Foundation

As CEO and creator of the UK's leading childcare social enterprise, June continues to break new ground in the development of Leyf's scalable social business model. She remains a tireless campaigner, looking for new ways to influence policy and make society a better place for all children and families. 

June has developed the Leyf Pedagogy and champions of community-based, multi-generational early years education as the basis for greater social and cultural capital to deliver long-term social impact. She continues to advise Governments as well as a range of organisations, academics and services at home and overseas about how best to implement a social enterprise vision for Early Years. 

June is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, director of Social Enterprise UK, trustee of The Book Trust, and member of the London Mayor’s Child Obesity Taskforce. June was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday honours in 2013, for her services to London’s children. 

In 2017 she was delighted to receive the 'Most Influential Person In Early Years' award and joined the top 10 of the WISE100 – an initiative from the NatWest SE100 Index which recognises 100 of the most inspiring and influential women in social enterprise, impact investment and social innovation.

Christine Parker

Teaching School Associate and MA Tutor, The Pen Green Teaching School

Dr Christine Parker has been a teacher and headteacher in primary and nursery schools in England for over 35 years. She is currently working as a Lead Tutor at the Pen Green Research Base in Corby, teaching on the ITT and MA Courses. Her specialist interests are early childhood education, school leadership and multilingual childhoods. 

Christine spent a number of years working in Karachi, Pakistan. She found early years teachers to be very receptive to ideas of experiential learning and this experience made a significant impression on how she approached working with children and their families in multi-ethnic contexts in the UK. 

Christine studied for her PhD at Pen Green and developed primary school leadership through a systems approach that was responsive to children’s, families’ and staff needs. She has recently been developing her interest in psychoanalytic observational approaches. Christine has worked as a partnership advisor for the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge and currently is an assessor for the Chartered College of Teaching.

Professor Dame Alison Peacock

Chief Executive of the Chartered College of Teaching

Professor Dame Alison Peacock is Chief Executive of the Chartered College of Teaching, a new Professional Body that seeks to raise our status through celebrating, supporting and connecting teachers to provide expert teaching and leadership.

Prior to joining the Chartered College, Dame Alison was Executive Headteacher of The Wroxham School in Hertfordshire. Her career to date has spanned primary, secondary and advisory roles. She is an Honorary Fellow of Queens College Cambridge and UCL, a Visiting Professor of both the University of Hertfordshire and Glyndŵr University and a trustee for Big Change.

Her research is published in a series of books about Learning without Limits offering an alternative approach to inclusive school improvement.

Professor Dominic Wyse

Professor of Early Childhood and Primary Education at IOE

Dominic is Professor of Early Childhood and Primary Education at IOE, and is the Founding Director of the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Pedagogy (0–11 years) (HHCP). He was President of the British Educational Research Association (BERA) (2019–2021). He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS), and of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA).

Dominic’s research focuses particularly on curriculum and pedagogy. He has made major contributions to knowledge about the teaching of writing and reading. From 2012 to 2018 Dominic was an editor of The BERA Curriculum Journal. Dominic is a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS), and of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA).

Prior to a role at the IOE as Head of Academic Department Learning and Leadership from 2012 to 2019 Dominic was Faculty Director of Research, Consultancy and Knowledge Transfer, in the Faculty of Children and Learning. Dominic has significant experience in music that began with his undergraduate studies at The Royal Academy of Music.

Before joining IOE, Dominic was a senior lecturer at the University of Cambridge. He was also appointed as the first director of Music-Making at Churchill College Cambridge, where he was a fellow and director of Studies for Education. In the past Dominic was a reader at Liverpool John Moores University, and a teacher with experience working in London, Bradford and Huddersfield in infant and junior phases.

• Q&A with Dominic Wyse

Also

• Lucy O’Rorke FRSA, Director of Projects & Research at the Helen Hamlyn Trust.

Image credits (in order from top to bottom): permission from Rachel Boyle, permission from Megan Dixon, permission from Charlotte Hacking, permission from Paul Jackson, permission from Naheeda Maharasingam, permission from June O'Sullivan MBE, permission from Christine Parker, permission from Professor Dame Alison Peacock, permission from Professor Dominic Wyse.