Meet the Judges
We are excited to have a stellar panel of judges who will help us to select up to seven impactful Scaling Award Winners who we will support to scale to the areas of greatest need over the next two years. These expert judges come from a range of backgrounds and have varied expertise in education and scaling.
Shortlisting Panel
Natasha Armstrong, National Foundation for Educational Research
Natasha is Head of Impact Strategy at the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER). NFER puts impact at the heart of its work to improve education outcomes for children and young people, supporting positive change across education systems in the UK and globally. Prior to joining NFER, Natasha was Director of Programmes, Impact & Innovation at BookTrust and Director of Services at School-Home Support. She started her career as a teacher and Leaving Care practitioner, before moving to the charity sector to design and scale programmes for children and young people for organisations such as Shift and Vital Regeneration.
Joana Cardim Dias, Education Policy Institute
Joana is a Senior Researcher in the School Workforce team at EPI since 2021. Before joining EPI, Joana was involved in several research projects focusing on how vulnerable people can access high quality education. In particular, she studied the effects of EdTech programmes in schools, the impacts of free childcare on children’s behaviour and the consequences of community-driven development on learning outcomes. She has designed and managed field experiments in Portugal, Mozambique and Angola.
Joana completed her PhD at NOVA School of Business and Economics in Lisbon and was a visiting research student at UCL, having collaborated in projects at LSE and with the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Tamsin Grainger, BTC Trust
Tamsin went to Cardiff University before training to teach English with Teach First. She worked at two wonderful schools in West London before moving to a school in Fulham and joining SLT. Here, she loved being part of the school’s journey from Inadequate to Good and the team doubled the KS4 results, to see positive progress measures for all groups of children, in just three years. Tamsin is now Director of Education for a Trust in the South West. She has a passion for high expectations, an inclusive school culture and reading. Away from work, Tamsin enjoys time with her family; taking her dog for muddy walks and going to the beach as often as possible.
Bennie Kara, The Bemrose School
Bennie is a deputy headteacher in the East Midlands, specialising in curriculum, teaching and learning. She started her career in the inaugural cohort of Teach First in 2003, teaching English in East London. Since then, she has taught in four London boroughs and in South Oxfordshire, before returning to Derby.
Bennie speaks, writes and trains on diversity in the curriculum. Alongside supporting schools to diversify their curriculum, she is the author of 'A Little Guide for Teachers: Diversity in Schools' (Sage Education). She has written on the subject of diversity for publications such as Schools Week and the Chartered College of Teaching's Education Exchange. She has been a keynote speaker for WomenEd, Diverse Educators and the Team English National Conference. Her second book, ‘Diverse Educators: A Manifesto’, a co-edited book with her Diverse Educators co-founder, Hannah Wilson, is due for publication in April 2022. In 2020 she was awarded the Joan Goody Award for Outstanding Contribution to Diversity and Inclusion by NATE.
Alex McAleavy, Social Business Trust
Alex is a Senior Investment Manager at Social Business Trust, working with a range of leading corporate partners to support high-potential social enterprises to grow and scale their impact. Previously Alex worked in social impact investment and strategy consulting.
Rachel Parkin, Save the Children UK
Rachel is Save the Children’s Head of North of England, working on the joint mission of reducing child poverty and the early learning gap through a combination of policy and practice change, using systems-change and co-design principles, and with children and families as partners throughout. Previously she has held roles in Strategy & Performance, Impact, Evaluation and Data in Save the Children, Teach First and Mencap. She is a big believer in the power of innovation combined with community knowledge and great use of data to find ways that can support the life chances of children across the country, both directly and through campaigning.
Nirmean Sawi, Spring Impact
Nirmean is a Consultant at Spring Impact, supporting the delivery of projects across a range of sectors. Nirmean has 5 years of experience managing a Food Bank and Community Hub supporting people experiencing financial destitution in Northwest London. During this time, she streamlined operations and oversaw the scale-up of interventions that provide beneficiaries with the practical and holistic support needed to improve their financial and emotional well-being, increase civic engagement and reduce the need for emergency food aid.
Yalinie Vigneswaran, Education Development Trust
Yalinie began her career as a passionate maths and science teacher before moving into various school leadership and school improvement roles in areas of disadvantage. She then moved to the education charity sector and has built a strong track record of designing and delivering evidence-based, technology-enabled programmes which have scaled quickly to reach hundreds of thousands of pupils and educators across the country.
She has been involved in leading various aspects of the National Tutoring Programme since its inception, firstly as the former Head of Academic Mentoring at Teach First, then leading School-Led Tutoring as Programme Director at Education Development Trust (EDT). She's currently the Senior Programme Director for UK Education Services at EDT, leading a team of brilliant Directors who oversee the Early Career Professional Development Programme, National Professional Qualifications and National Tutoring Programme.
Katharine Vincent, Reconnect London
Dr Katharine Vincent is Director of Reconnect London, a headteacher network supporting post-pandemic education recovery in the capital. She has spent most of her career in London schools as a teacher and senior leader, most recently as Principal of Mulberry UTC in Tower Hamlets. Katharine has a doctorate in education and previously worked at UCL IOE as a lecturer and programme leader. She is currently Chair of Governors at Sheringham Nursery School in Newham, east London, and also chairs the strategic board for the South East London Plus Maths Hub.
Fair Education Alliance Chairs:
Siwan Davies
Chloe Cawthorne
Marika Johansson
Zoë Morgan
Final Panel
Jennese Alozie, University of Chichester Academy Trust
Jennese has over 25 years education sector experience. She started her career as a secondary school English teacher and has held several senior leadership, including Executive Head, roles across secondary and primary school phases and she was a Lead Ofsted Inspector. Prior to her current role Jennese held a MAT Executive role for 6 years, instrumental in successfully leading Trust growth from 6 to 20 schools across London and East Sussex. Jennese has had the privilege of playing an active role in the Department for Education Trust and School Improvement Review and support programme and has used her extensive sector knowledge to support Trust growth, leadership and development. She holds an MA Inclusive Education, NPQEL qualifications and is a Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching. Jennese is a Board member for two MAT and Institute for Educational and Social Equity. Her current role is CEO of University of Chichester Academy Trust, leading 15 schools and a SCITT across Portsmouth, west Sussex and Hampshire.
Nick Darbyshire, Impetus
Nick is a Senior Investment Director at Impetus, with responsibility for a portfolio of 15 education charities who support young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Prior to Impetus, Nick was a senior partner in the Financial Services practice of Oliver Wyman, a global strategy consultancy, where he was also head of Graduate Recruitment and co-led their Social Impact practice. Nick also worked in social impact investing for a number of years. Nick is also a governor for a large primary school in Ealing.
Sir Paul Grant
Sir Paul Grant was Headteacher at Robert Clack Comprehensive School in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham from 1997-2017. Previously he had taught in schools in the Australia, USA and in the North of England. Robert Clack is featured in Ofsted’s influential study, ‘Twelve Outstanding Secondary Schools – Excelling against the odds’ (2009).
Paul has served as a National Leader in Education and was a member of Business in the Community’s Education Board for over ten years. He has been actively involved in school and system Improvement having been involved with the London Challenge from the outset. Paul was knighted for services to local and national education, appointed a Deputy Lieutenant for Greater London and was bestowed the Freedom of Barking and Dagenham in 2009. In 2012 he was appointed Honorary Fellow of the Faculty of Education at the University of Hull, and Visiting Professor of the Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education at Anglia Ruskin University.
Paul has been a member of the Premier League’s National Advisory Group on Education for over ten years and he has been a coach, leadership and executive mentoring consultant at the Premier League since that time. He is also a Premier League Education Advisor and an Education Advisor for England FA.
In 2017 Robert Clack was highlighted for best practice in a DFE report (Creating a culture: how school leaders can optimise behaviour) on how outstanding behaviour is created and embedded in UK Schools. Paul is Visiting Professor of Global Education and Learning at Coventry University and is the Education Advisor to the Liverpool City Region Mayor. He is also President of the Hull University Alumni.
Joe Hallgarten, Centre for Education and Youth
Joe is CfEY’s new Chief Executive Officer. Since starting his career teaching for five years in urban primary schools, Joe has 20 years’ experience of leading and influencing education change as a programme leader, researcher and policy analyst.
He has authored many reports and spoken across the world on a wide range of education issues, including on teacher development, curriculum reform, innovation in school systems, and creative learning. He has also designed, led and offered strategic support for a wide range of education programmes, in the UK and internationally. This has included contributions to professional development for teachers, school and system leaders.
Resham Kotecha, Social Mobility Commission
Resham is a Social Mobility Commissioner, appointed by the Cabinet Office to make the case for social mobility in England and hold Government and other leaders to account.
Resham has worked for over a decade on tackling social mobility, volunteering with the Prince’s Trust and the Shaw Trust, and giving talks around the UK. Resham worked for a think tank focused on social mobility in the North of England, and served on a Home Office Windrush Working Group.
Resham is the Head of Engagement for Women2Win, a Trustee of the Fawcett Society and a Board member at the John Smith Centre.
She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Cambridge University and has been recognised as as a ‘Global Shaper’ by the World Economic Forum.
Julie Nelson, Education Endowment Foundation
Dr Julie Nelson is interim Director of Research at the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF). She has responsibility for the EEF’s knowledge generation portfolio, overseeing grant making and evaluation at all stages of the pipeline, from early stage programme development, through to scale. Julie is a passionate advocate of research evidence being practically useful for the education sector. She was previously based at the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) where she directed research studies in the fields of socio-economic disadvantage, teachers’ research use and evidence-informed practice. Julie has published and presented widely on these topics.
Matthew Shanks, Education South West
Originally hailing from Manchester, Matthew has worked as a teacher in education for 28 years, 19 as a senior leader, Headteacher, Executive Headteacher and chair of governors. He has led both secondary and primary schools out of special measures to achieve Ofsted outstanding and good grades and is motivated by improving ‘cultures’ and providing ‘opportunities’ for all children to succeed, not just boosting examination outcomes.
Matthew is proud to have been a designated National Leader of Education, as well as a trained and active lead Ofsted inspector at primary and secondary level, and enjoys working with others. As a level 7 executive coach and mentor with the Institute of Leadership and Management, Matthew works closely with all who seek to make things better for children and staff in schools. Matthew is currently seconded 2 days a week to Devon County Council as the Interim Head of Education (Strategy).
“Education is a force for change; I am passionate about the power of education for all and have many years’ experience as a governor and trustee. Teachers and leaders should work together across educational settings for the good of all children; only by leading with humility will we truly help the children and young people we serve.”
Brett Harris Wigdortz, Tiney
Brett’s lifelong mission is to help every child access an excellent education. He is the co-founder and CEO of Tiney.co, a VC-backed start up which uses a digital platform and operating system to enable micro-entrepreneurs to launch and run childcare businesses from their homes and give families access to quality, affordable and flexible early years education. It is currently the largest childminding agency in Britain. He is also the non-executive chairman of the National Citizen Service Trust, the largest youth programme in Europe for those on the cusp of adulthood.He wrote the original business plan for Teach First and led the organisation for fifteen years, helping to build it into one of the UK’s leading movements to tackle education inequality and the largest graduate recruiter in the country. He is co-founder and was Deputy CEO of Teach For All, which has brought the model to over 50 countries around the world. He is also a trustee & co-founder of Teach First Israel, the UK Fair Education Alliance and Bite Back 2030, which he founded with Jamie Oliver to reduce youth obesity. He received an OBE for services to education in 2012 and was formerly a management consultant at McKinsey & Company.
Nicola Hughes, Credit Suisse
Nicola is currently Deputy Head of Corporate Citizenship EMEA at Credit Suisse, working with 16 non-profit organisations across the region to deliver on the bank’s Future Skills and Financial Education strategies for a more inclusive future.
A graduate of University College Dublin and the School of Oriental and African Studies, previous roles have spanned the non-profit and corporate sectors where Nicola has maintained equitable quality education as a central focus of her personal and professional endeavours.
Sam Butters, Fair Education Alliance
Sam brings 15 years of experience in strategy, business and organisational leadership, and is committed to having a social impact and creating a fairer world. Sam has led the Fair Education Alliance since 2017, coming together with Gina in 2019 to launch the Fair Education Alliance’s new strategy and to launch as an independent charity.
She started her career on the Deloitte Scholar Programme in Audit and then went into Consulting where she supported a range of public sector and education clients with organisational challenges. Key projects included a Higher Education sector-wide transformation for how funding and regulation was conducted after the introduction of tuition fees and a project working with Ingeus in the UK and Saudi Arabia to support adult employability and skills.
After Deloitte she led Strategy and Planning for Teach First, with a focus on ensuring effective delivery of Teach First’s programmes across England and Wales, internal operations improvements and development of new strategies for the organisation (including developing a strategy for supporting School leadership in disadvantaged areas).
She is also a member of the Board for Skills Builder Partnership.
Gina Cicerone, Fair Education Alliance
Prior to joining the FEA, Gina led the Teach First Innovation Unit to nurture social entrepreneurs to tackle educational inequality through training, funding and mentoring. This enabled a portfolio of 20 start-ups to scale from reaching 30,000 pupils to over 500,000 in 5 years.
In 2008, Gina founded Fundacion VASE, an NGO in Ecuador dedicated to volunteer exchanges and youth leadership development. After five years as CEO, she handed over leadership to pursue her Masters in Development Management at the London School of Economics. Prior to joining Teach First, Gina supported individuals to start and scale their social ventures at UnLtd. Gina is a governor of Clapham Manor Primary School, a trustee of the OVO Foundation and on the Ashoka Venture Board.