A brave and expert education specialist

I have researched and written about teachers’ working lives and teacher professionalism. My book which examines teachers’ working lives in England and compares them with international evidence of teachers’ working lives in high performing OECD education systems, received very favourable reviews.

I have represented teachers and leaders to government ministers, in Parliament, at the Department for Education, to professional and research bodies and frequently on the mainstream broadcast media.  

I have a very good knowledge, born of long experience, of how government works, how the civil service operates and how policy is developed and disseminated. I have worked closely with politicians of all political parties. As General Secretary of the NEU, and previously, ATL from 2003 to 2023 I have worked with 14 Secretaries of State for Education.

I am widely respected for the depth of knowledge and experience of the issues which animate the education debate and my ability to argue my case – strongly and courteously.

I write regularly on education topics in education and mainstream media.

I am an accomplished public speaker and advocate for education professionals.  I make major contributions to the education debate.  I speak at fringe meetings at party conferences, on education panels and in research debates. 

I have frequently been interviewed on the Today Programme, BBC, ITV and Channel 4 news, the World at One, Sky news, Newsnight and on regional media outlets. I am a regular panellist on ‘Sunday Morning with Kate McCann and Adam Boulton’. 

I have been a panellist on Question Time, Any Questions, the Trevor Phillips show and Cross Question. I have spoken at the Oxford and Cambridge Unions. I been a witness at Education Select Committees in both Houses and spoken regularly at research conferences. 

An experienced and successful leader of large membership organisations

• I provide consultancy advice and give keynote lectures to leaders of organisations, supporting them in exercising decisive, effective leadership and coping with crises.

• I have over 25 years of experience leading major organisations representing teachers, leaders and support staff and workers in the public sector.

• I have ‘turned around’ failing organisations through my decisive and effective leadership; a powerful, motivational narrative, effective people management and excellent internal and external communication mechanisms.

• in 2017 was elected President of the TUC. 

• I was two term-member of the ACAS Board.

• I was, for over 10 years, Chair of the Government funded, £12 million per year TUC run Union Learn Programme.

• I chaired the 'Unions as Employers' strand of the TUC Anti-Racism Taskforce

• I am currently a member of the World Board of Education International, the global body for education unions worldwide.

• 'I was appointed a 'digital leader' by the TUC in recognition of the NEU's innovative use of data to gauge member opinion, inform member communications and establish campaign priorities.

More about me!

I am the seventh of eight children, growing up in Bolton during the 60s and 70s. My father was the headmaster of the local Catholic primary school – where we were all educated. My mother was a teacher – so education ran in the family!

My secondary education was at a girl’s grammar school. My first degree, at Hull University was in English. I did a PGCE at Durham and went to teach in two schools in the Borough of Harrow, North London.

After four years’ teaching I took a part time M.A. in Language and Literature at London University Institute of Education.  I became Head of English at Whitmore High School in Harrow where I worked to transform the English curriculum and teaching practices in the school. After three years the pass rate at GCSE had risen by 50%.  I introduced mixed ability classes; world literature; the explicit teaching of spoken standard English and the use of oracy to promote in depth learning.

In the early 1990s I established the English PGCE course at the University of York. After several years of part time study I was awarded a PhD. I then moved to Edge Hill University to become Director of Secondary Education where I led the second largest secondary teacher training programme in the country.  At the end of the decade I moved to Kingston University to become Head of the School of Education, responsible for initial teacher training, post graduate learning and certificated provision at Masters and Doctoral level.

During this time I co-authored, with Geoff Barton, a series of English curriculum text books and edited a Cambridge University edition of George Eliot’s Silas Marner.

In 2003 I answered an advert in the Guardian for the next General Secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers! I had always been a member of a union, but not an activist, so I did not expect to get an interview.