About

Lord Lingfield was knighted in 1993 for his services to education and created a Peer for life in 2010. He has been a teacher, researcher, lecturer and education policy maker. In the 1990s he was a senior adviser in education to the government and in charge of the policy of independence for state schools, and was Pro-Chancellor of Brunel University from 2006-13. He is author of the Lingfield Report on Professionalism in Further Education, and currently Chairman of the Cadet Vocational Qualification Organisation, CVQO, and the English Schools’ Orchestra.

Dawn is Chief Executive and Principal of Burton and South Derbyshire College (BSDC) and Deputy Chair Europe for the World Federation of Colleges and Polytechnics.  She has extensive experience in senior positions at Board level (both as a NED and Chair) across a number of national groups and a PLC.  She is a graduate of Oxford Brookes University, has had a successful international career, is a published author and has been a successful WorldSkills Chief expert and training manager for WorldSkills UK.

She has received numerous awards throughout her extensive career in technical and professional education including Principal of the year from the Centre for Excellence in Leadership, leadership in race equality award from the Network for Black and Asian Professionals and Highly commended in the Prince Philip Medal award for her professional accomplishments.

Dawn has led BSDC through a major transformation resulting in a truly global college offering a range of bespoke and innovative products in the UK, Saudi Arabia and Asia. BSDC has won numerous awards including the World Federation of Colleges and Polytechnics gold award for Higher Technical Vocational Education.

Lesley has worked in the education and training sector for the majority of her career. Prior to her appointment as CEO and Principal for The Trafford College Group, she was Senior Vice President and Senior Responsible Officer for Pearson, with responsibility for qualification standards, quality and the awarding of all academic and vocational qualifications. She was also responsible for the development of all vocational qualifications worldwide. Lesley joined Pearson from the Association of Colleges (AoC) where she was Deputy CEO and led on UK and international education policy, AoC Create and business development. Lesley has also held senior positions in the Learning and Skills Council and the Adult Learning Inspectorate.

In 2016 she became Chair of the newly formed UK Skills Partnership Board, a network of the UK’s leading education sector organisations and which was established to promote the development of vocational and technical skills internationally. She is a member of the DIT’s Ministerial Education Sector Advisory Group and British Council’s Education Advisory Board. She is also an advisor to a large tech based education organisation specialising in apprenticeship. In 2018 Lesley was a member of the Prime Minister’s trade delegation to China and she has worked extensively overseas advising governments on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET).

Lesley is a Trustee for two education charities, Helena Kennedy Foundation and CVQO.

In 2015 she was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to education, she is also a fellow of the Chartered Institution for Further Education

Helen has significant experience in working across the whole FE sector including General FE colleges, local authorities and Adult and Community Learning providers and now as Principal at the Working Men’s College.

Her first degree is in Librarianship and she started her working career in college libraries at the London College of Fashion and then the London college of Printing. Both colleges are now part of University of Arts London. She then completed an MA at University College London and moved into full time teaching. She taught A level History and English at Southgate College and then progressed into management roles where she created the Adult studies department developing a portfolio of Access to Higher Education courses whilst having a national role as the Chair of the Forum for Access Studies. She was involved in the development of the Open College Network for North London and Hertfordshire and chaired the Access committee and many validation panels. In partnership with Middlesex University, Helen developed and delivered teacher-training courses in the Gambia. Helen worked for Lewisham Council following a failed Ofsted inspection where she remodelled the whole service whilst achieving an Ofsted Good grade at re-inspection.

Helen became Principal of Working Men’s College in 2014 where she led a total review and remodelling of the curriculum, alongside a substantial growth in learner numbers. She has introduced a portfolio of formal vocational qualifications alongside their non-accredited community learning. The College gained chartered status of the Chartered Institution for Further Education (CIFE) in March 2018 and in July 2019 was awarded a Fellowship of the CIFE.

Chris Jenks is a sociologist. He has published thirty books and numerous articles and chapters in books, many on the topics of education, childhood and culture. He has taught at every level from primary through to postgraduate, and was Head of Department, Professor and Pro-Warden (Research) at Goldsmiths College, and Vice-Chancellor and Principal of Brunel University. He is a Visiting Professor at the University of Trondheim, Norway and has been External Examiner at over ten UK Universities.

Crawford joined Hawk Training in 2001 and has worked in both a training and commercial capacity. He assumed the role of Managing Director in 2016 from his previous role as Commercial Director. Hawk has supported thousands of learners on Apprenticeship and CMI-accredited management programmes and works with around 400 employers across a range of vocational sectors in both the public and private sectors. Sectors include Business Administration, Early Years, Improving Operational Performance, IT, Learning and Development, Management, Team Leading and Warehousing and Storage. Hawk enables young people to secure apprenticeship positions whilst supporting organisations to recruit apprentices and enhance their succession planning as well as upskill existing staff. Following inspection in September 2013, Hawk became the first independent learning provider in the country to be graded ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted under the then common inspection framework. In 2017, the organisation became the first independent learning provider to gain membership of the Chartered Institution for Further Education.

Crawford is a member of the AELP London Advisory Board and the AELP Strategic Forum. He is also a member of the Chartered Institution for Further Education.

Rajinder Kaur Mann OBE DL is the former Chief Executive of the Network for Black and Asian Professionals and the former Executive Director of the Black Leadership Initiative. She was awarded an OBE for her services to the BAME community in 2011, an Honorary Doctorate from Wolverhampton University in 2013 and installed as a Deputy Lieutenant for the West Midlands in 2020. Rajinder has served on a variety of national committees and has a wealth of experience spanning the education sector.

Dr Sam Parrett OBE is the Group Principal and CEO of London & South East Education Group.

Sam was appointed Principal of Bromley College in 2010, overseeing a merger with Orpington College the following year. Then in 2016, she led the country’s first three-way College merger, bringing together Bromley College, Bexley College and Greenwich Community College to form London South East Colleges – which now has over 13,000 students, c1000 staff and a total group turnover of £60m.

Strong progression into college has been supported by Sam’s successful establishment of a multi-academy trust which includes eight alternative, special and mainstream schools.

London & South East Colleges Group, headed up by Sam, was established in 2017 as the overarching organisation encompassing London South East Colleges, London South East Academies Trust and an apprenticeship provider – London Skills for Growth.

Sam started her career in the HR sector. She then managed a training provider and worked for a funding agency before joining the FE sector in 1997. She took up posts in two colleges before being
appointed Principal at Bromley in 2010.

Sam is a fellow of the CIPD and a fellow of the RSA, as well as a Vice-Chair of Mixed Economy Group (MEG). She was awarded an OBE for services to Further Education in 2016 and achieved her Doctoral Degree in Education in 2019. Following this, Sam became a National Leader of Further Education (NLFE) – one of just eleven in the country and was appointed as an advisor to a new independent group, set up to support disabled students – Disabled Students’ Commission. She was recognised as TES FE Awards 2020 Leader of the Year.

Ian Pryce has been Principal & Chief Executive of Bedford College since 1998, having joined the College in 1996 as Finance Director. He was previously a regional Finance Director at the Further Education Funding Council and has also worked as a Director or Senior Manager in retail, electricity generation and local government in Liverpool, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Northamptonshire. He is a fellow of the accountancy body CIPFA and a Syndic of the University of Cambridge. He was one of the founder members of the 157 Group, founding Chair of the Bedford Free School and was awarded a CBE in the 2011 Queen’s Birthday Honours. In August 2017, the College merged with Tresham College to form The Bedford College Group.

Mike is Principal of East Riding College, part of the TEC Partnership, one of the largest outstanding providers of further education in the country. He joined East Riding College in January 2018 from the College of North West London, where he was Deputy Principal for three-and-a-half years, leading it to a successful merger as a Good college. Mike has been a senior leader, with extensive experience in FE Colleges, Schools and Private Training Providers, since 1996 and also worked for six years as an Additional Inspector for Ofsted in London and the South East Region.

Originally from Cambridge, via the North West, Leicestershire and London, Mike’s work has taken him across the country, and he has worked nationally, in London and in the East Midlands.

Mike believes passionately in providing the best possible quality of educational provision for all students, whatever their starting point. He believes further education should provide high quality training opportunities for local people, communities and employers, working in partnership to help drive economic regeneration. Mike’s role as Principal of East Riding College is to drive and lead this agenda on behalf of the students, staff and governors, to transform lives and help people reach their full potential.

In March 2015, Mike was appointed an Honorary Member of the City and Guilds of London and was awarded the Fellowship of the Chartered Institution for Further Education in May 2019.

Professor Andrew Wren joined Furness College as Principal and Chief Executive in September 2015. Having grown up in North Cumbria, he moved to East Yorkshire, graduating from the University of Hull in 1993 with a BA (Joint Honours) in Modern Languages. After some time studying and teaching English in Linköping, Sweden, he began a career in hospitality and retail management, and undertook part-time teaching during the evenings. In 2002, he moved full time into Further Education as a lecturer at Hull College, progressing to Curriculum Leader and then Head of School, before taking up a director post at East Riding College where he later became Vice Principal.

He completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Education at the University of Huddersfield and a Postgraduate Diploma in Management with the Chartered Management Institute. He is also a fellow of the Chartered Institution for Further Education, a Board member of the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), Deputy Chair of the Board of St. Mary’s Hospice in Ulverston and a Governor at his son’s school.

Andrew is also Professor of Practice in Collaborative Education Leadership at the University of Cumbria, a role designed to support a closer working relationship between the FE and HE sectors.

During his first year in post in Barrow, he led the successful merger of Furness College and Barrow Sixth Form College, securing the breadth of post-16 education in Furness. Andrew is committed to providing the highest quality provision and believes firmly that Further Education colleges, such as Furness College, have a critical role to play in providing learning opportunities to help transform the lives of individuals and impact positively on employers.

Geoff hails from Sutton Coldfield. He graduated in Politics from Liverpool University and after part-time teaching obtained his first full time job at South Trafford College. He moved into LEA administration with Northants County Council, was FE Officer for Birmingham and then Director of Education at Bexley London Borough. As incorporation beckoned, Geoff joined the Further Education Funding Council. He was responsible for developing the approach to achieving College mergers and was credited with piloting the way out of the franchising crisis.

After helping to set up the Learning and Skills Council, Geoff joined New College Nottingham and became CEO and Principal following Dame Pat Morgan-Webb. After a decade, Geoff stepped down from full-time roles to pursue diverse interests including spells as Chair of the Information Authority, interim CEO of the Education and Training Foundation and General Secretary of the Principals Professional Council.

Geoff was knighted for his services to FE in the Queens New Year Honours 2012.

The Honorary Fellowship of the Chartered Institution for Further Education was conferred upon Sir Geoff at the Admissions Ceremony in March 2018.
Geoff comments; ‘receiving the Institution’s Fellowship was indeed an honour. Being recognised by the Body that has championed the autonomy and strength of leading FE Colleges and Training Providers is humbling. I particularly valued the citation that said my award was “in recognition of extremely distinguished services in the cause of further education in this country” ’.

The opportunities presented by the FE & Skills White Paper need to be grasped. The direct expertise of our member Colleges and Training Providers will be paramount in advocating for the autonomy and professionalism of our sector which is the raison d’etre of the Institution. But Fellows can bring to bear experience and lessons learned – sometimes painfully – from past legislative disappointments.

I look forward to playing my part in that noble cause!

Sir John Hayes was first elected for MP as South Holland and the Deepings in 1987, being re-elected at six subsequent elections.

From 1999, he held a wide variety of Opposition front bench roles, serving in the Shadow Cabinet, from 2005 he was Shadow Minister for Further Education and Educational Skills. Sir John was then appointed as Minister of State for Further Education, Skills, and Lifelong Learning in May 2010, In 2012 he was appointed Minister of State for Energy, and in 2013 became Minister of State for the Cabinet Office and Senior Parliamentary Advisor to the Prime Minister, attending Cabinet. He joined the Privy Council in 2013, in 2014 Sir John was appointed Minister of State for Department of Transport. In 2015 he became Minister for Security at the Home Office, returning to Department for Transport in 2016 to 2018.

Following his appointment as CBE in 2016, John was made a Knight Bachelor two years later. In recognition of a distinguished contribution to education, he was granted Fellowship of the Charters Institution for Further Education in 2017, Fellowship of City and Guides of London Institute in 2018 and awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Bolton in 2019. Sir John became a professor at the University in 2020 commissioned to create a postgraduate course in Government, Opposition, and Parliamentary Studies.

Since leaving his Party’s front bench, Sir John has chaired the APPG for Skills, Careers and Enterprise and the APPG for Heritage Crafts. In Opposition, Government and as a senior backbencher he has spoken and written on numerous occasions on further education, higher education, skills, careers and employment.

Of the CIFE, Sir John has said that:

“It is essential that the status and value of Further Education is recognised through accreditation. To which end, the Institute has a vital role to play in identifying and celebrating best practice, I am delighted to play a part as a fellow in this important institution.”
Sir John is married and has two sons. His family live at the heart of his constituency in the Lincolnshire Fens.

Dr Ann Limb CBE DL FCFE is a passionate advocate for adult and further education and one of the sector’s long-standing and steadfast campaigners. Following graduation and a period of training and research in education, Ann’s career in FE began in 1976 as a part-time lecturer in modern languages & ESOL at what is now The Manchester College. A proud Mancunian by birth, she spent a decade working in colleges in the north and Derbyshire, moving through every teaching and management grade, before becoming Principal Milton Keynes College in 1986, when there were but a handful of women FE College Principals.

Under Ann’s leadership, Milton Keynes College grew tenfold, student achievement rates improved significantly, and the college was transformed from one judged to be ‘in special measures’ to ‘a good college with significant outstanding features including strategy, governance and leadership’. Highlighted by the Conservative government in 1992 as an exemplar for incorporation, the college was also at the forefront of much pioneering curriculum design and innovative employment practice – leading the way in student centered learning and staff welfare provision. At a national level, as well as co-chairing the adult education initiative that became the ‘Campaign for Learning’, in 1991, Ann was founding Chair of the Network for Women Managers in FE – now the Women’s Leadership Network.

During Ann’s second principalship at Cambridge Regional College between 1996-2001, Helena Kennedy’s seminal report on access to higher education for disadvantaged FE students, ‘Learning Works’ was published. The Labour government’s failure to address this issue impelled Ann to found – and personally finance – the independent educational charity, Helena Kennedy Foundation, which over the last 20 years has supported almost 2000 FE students to obtain a university degree. Ann’s move, at the start of the millennium, into the senior levels of the civil service, overseeing the establishment of the UK government’s flagship e-learning programmes, learndirect, UK online and gov.uk, did not take her far from the orbit of Further Education. She has served on the boards of the Centre for Excellence in Leadership and the Learning & Skills Improvement Service – both forerunners to today’s Education and Training Foundation and was elected to the Council of the City & Guilds of London Institute where she was made a Fellow in 2002, has served as a Trustee, founding Chair of The City & Guilds Foundation, and in autumn 2021 will become the Guilds first woman Chair.

In 2011 Ann was awarded an OBE for her work in education and in 2015 received a CBE for public service. In 2019 she was honoured with the award of Fellowship of the Chartered Institution of Further Education – and sector body she believes will have an increasingly significant role to play in the leadership of skills and technical training throughout the 21st century.

David trained originally as an industrial designer and then gained a research degree at Nottingham University. He experienced the creative turmoil of the formation of the polytechnics while teaching and practising in Nottingham and went on to manage a yet more dynamic situation as a reforming deputy director of Dublin’s National College of Art and Design from 1975-1980. Returning to the UK he was principal at Winchester School of Art for eight years as well as chairman of an innovative consortium of art and design learning provision in Hampshire. He went on to merge London’s Central School of Art and Design with Saint Martin’s School of Art as the first head of the world-leading Central Saint Martin’s.

David describes the experience of bringing together two very different college cultures as “traumatic”, notwithstanding the fact that both were early members of what became the University of the Arts, London. In 1991 he moved on to the Royal College of Art under the exciting, if occasionally eccentric, leadership of Sir Jocelyn Stevens, learning more about the ruthless pursuit of excellence in two years than in the previous 20. David went on to be senior inspector for the (then) 70 further education colleges in south-east England as one of the first appointments of the new Further Education Funding Council. After the first inspection cycle in 1997 he set up the new Training Standards Council as chief inspector and CEO, with responsibility for raising the quality of work-based training funded by TECs and welfare-to-work programmes. The success of the TSC led to addition of work from FEFC and Ofsted in the formation of the Adult Learning Inspectorate which David founded and led until it, too, succumbed to government reorganisation in 2007. The ALI pioneered many new approaches to quality improvement through the creative use of inspection, in the UK and internationally.

From leaving government service until recently David was a partner in Beyond Standards Ltd. During that time he established and chaired the National Skills Academy for Social Care and was expert advisor to Lord Lingfield’s inquiry into raising teaching standards and qualifications in FE. He continued to work as an honorary advisor in the formation and achievement of chartered status for the Chartered Institute for Further Education. David sees the Institute as a means to raise the status of FE colleges as key generators of both wealth and community cohesion. Living in Hampshire, David continues his connection with the sector both through the Institute and as chair of the Quality and Standards Committee of City and Guilds.