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People in the Education Leadership Academy

Director 

Colleagues who work in the academy

  • Dr Simon Asquith

    Associate Professor

    Dr Asquith has a particular interest in the positioning of leaders, especially those leading Multi Academy Trusts and Teaching School Hubs.

  • Dr Dawn England

    Associate Professor

    Dr Dawn England's work pursues how to understand barriers to education globally with a key focus on gender, parental beliefs, and peer experiences.

  • Professor Karl Kitching

    Professor of Public Education

    Professor Kitching's research and teaching focuses on challenging multiple inequalities in education, in childhood, and in young people's lives.

  • Dr Meng Tian

    Associate Professor in Educational Leadership

    Dr Meng Tian's research focuses on distributed leadership, social justice leadership, professional development, education leadership policy-making, and comparative education

  • Dr Tarek Mostafa

    Associate Professor in Education and Public Policy

    Dr Tarek Mostafa's research interests include education, public and social policy, assessment, equity in education, and survey and quantitative methods.

Our guest lecturers

Herminder Kaur Channa JP OBE

Herminder is currently Regional Director for Oasis in the Midlands, Lead Ofsted Inspector, a Local Leader of Education (LLE) and a Magistrate. Prior to this, Herminder was Executive Principal at Ark Schools.

Sajid Gulzar OBE

CEO, Prince Albert Community Trust. Sajid was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Queen’s Birthday honours list 2019 for services to education.

Kirsty Tinsley

Research and Development Lead, Windsor Academy Trust.

Our seminar leaders

Ava Sturridge-Packer CBE

Former Headteacher of St Mary’s CofE Primary School in Birmingham and currently DfE and Birmingham Education Partnership adviser. In 2000 Ava was made a CBE for services to education.

Sir David Carter

Sir David Carter was CEO at the Cabot MAT in Bristol before becoming the first Regional Schools Commissioner for the South West of England. He then became National Schools Commissioner and, as an authentic education leader, was a strong influence on government policy.

Steve Munby CBE

Steve Munby has spent his whole career in education, first as a teacher and then as an adviser before moving into leadership roles. Between 2005 and 2017 he was Chief Executive first of the National College for School Leadership in England and then of the Education Development Trust, an international education charity. He is now a self-employed consultant and speaker on leadership and on system reform. Steve is also a visiting professor at University College London Institute for Education and is the facilitator for the Atlantic Rim Collaboratory (ARC) summits, which bring together education systems from across the world. He was awarded a CBE in the New Year honours list in 2010. His book Imperfect Leadership: A Book for Leaders who Know They Don’t Know it All was published in 2019 to critical acclaim.

Dr Kulvarn Atwal

Dr Kulvarn Atwal FCCT has spent his entire career teaching and leading in East London schools and is currently Head Teacher at Highlands Primary School. Highlands was recently awarded the Mayor of London's Schools for Success award for the third year in a row; one of only 30 primary or secondary schools in London to achieve this award. He is also currently Interim Head Teacher of Uphall Primary School, which is one of the largest primary schools in the country.

Kulvarn specialises in teacher professional learning. He has recently been awarded Fellowship Status at the Chartered College of Education and has published his first book, 'The Thinking School. Developing a Dynamic Learning Community'. He occasionally tweets @thinkingschool2.

Ela McSorley

Ela McSorley FCCT has worked in education in and around Birmingham for the last twenty-three years, eighteen of which within senior leadership teams. She has worked across a variety of different schools, including some time in international education, within a small multi-faith Trust as a Director of Learning and Teaching and a variety of schools across the midlands as deputy headteacher and now Principal of a large all-through school, in Small Heath, Birmingham. She has also worked as a curriculum advisor at QCDA and an English subject lead for ITT at the King Edward’s Consortium.

Ela is a founding fellow of the Chartered College of Teachers. She has worked as a leader in a pathfinder school on the Ethical Leadership programme and has been a member of the advisory group, developing the Chartered Teacher Programme and support for the early career teachers.

Advisers and guest speakers

Dr Kulvarn Atwal
Headteacher
Highlands Primary School

Mr Sajid Gulzar OBE
Chief Executive Officer
Prince Albert Community Trust

Ms Emma Knights OBE
Chief Executive Officer
National Governance Association (NGA)

Ms Priya Lakani OBE
Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Century Tech

Mrs Ava Sturridge Packer CBE
National Leader of Education & former Headteacher
St Mary’s CofE Primary School Handsworth

Hon Professor Mufti Sir Hamid Patel
CBE, CEO Star Multi Academy Trust

Dame Rachel de Souza
Children’s Commissioner England
Inspiration Trust

Sir Mike Tomlinson
Former HMCI and DfE Commissioner for Birmingham

Mr Colin Townsend
Principal
University of Birmingham School

Mr Les Walton CBE
Chair
Association of Education Advisers

Honorary Fellows

Ava Sturridge-Packer CBE

Ava Sturridge -Packer CBE was Headteacher at St Mary’s C of E Primary school Handsworth, for 22 years. She led the school from Special Measures, to Ofsted Outstanding. In January 2000, she was awarded a CBE, for Services to Education. In 2009 she was designated a National Leader of Education and since this time, she has led on school to school support. This includes, leading St Michael’s C of E Primary Handsworth, from Special Measures in 2011 to Ofsted Good. Ava was previously an Ofsted additional Inspector.

Since 2018, she has been working as a school Improvement adviser for Birmingham Education Partnership, as well as working with a range of Academies and Trusts.

 

Sajid Gulzar OBE

Sajid is Principal at Kings Barsha School in Dubai.

He is the founding CEO of the Prince Albert Community Trust (PACT), a MAT of five Primary Schools and one new secondary school. All PACT schools are exceptionally ambitious for their pupils. He is is a National Leader of Education, speaks nationally on educational leadership and has worked internationally on behalf of the National Association of Special Educational Needs (nasen). Sajid is a guest lecturer at the University of Birmingham’s Education Leadership Academy and served on the West Midlands Regional School’s Commissioner’s Advisory Board from 2017 until 2022.

In June 2019 Sajid was awarded an OBE for Services to Education.

Rosemary Campbell-Stephens MBE

Rosemary is an African Caribbean veteran educator of Jamaican parentage. Described as an edgy keynote speaker and author, she frames her work through a critical race lens and describes herself as an anti-racist, humanist and womanist. She is currently amplifying discussions about how a Global Majority mindset and framework can positively disrupt systemically racist policies and practices that are presently baked into all previously colonised and colonising systems.

As a critical part of the decolonisation process, she rejects minoritising labels such as ‘ethnic minorities’ as they incorrectly label the Global Majority as ‘minorities’ subordinating them to a white minority norm.

Herminder Kaur Channa OBE

Herminder is currently Regional Director for Oasis in the Midlands, Chair of Trustees for Prince Albert multi academy trust, a National Leader of Education (NLE), and a Magistrate.

Her work on Character Education with the University of Birmingham’s Jubilee Centre has been formally recognised and in July 2022 Herminder was awarded “Ambassador for Character” status from the Jubilee centre.

Herminder’s chapter titled “Authentic Leadership” in The Birmingham Book - Lessons in urban education leadership and policy from the Trojan Horse affair has received much attention from the educational sector. In September 2022 Herminder was conferred as an Honorary fellow at the University of Birmingham’s Faculty of Education engaging in research focusing on school improvement through character education.

Meena Kumari Wood

Meena Kumari Wood is a former HMI Ofsted, Principal of Adult College, Principal of Secondary Academy. Inspired by her varied leadership roles, she recently authored the popular ‘Secondary Curriculum Transformed; Enabling All to Achieve’ (Routledge 2021). This features as core reading for the MEd in Educational Leadership (University of Birmingham).

As a widely experienced International Educational Consultant she conducts training in the UK, Dubai and India for peer reviews, instructional coaching, inspection and governance. along with in-school reviews of curriculum and assessment. Meena regularly publishes articles for a range of educational publications and is a key- note speaker at Edu-Conferences.

MBA Educational Leadership FRSA MCCT

Adrian George Packer CBE

Adrian Packer is the Founder and CEO of CORE Education Trust was set up by Adrian in the wake of the Trojan Horse affair in Birmingham. He has gone on to establish CORE as an award winning, nationally respected multi academy trust serving under-represented communities.

Adrian has worked at every level in every sector of education: adult, HE, FE, Secondary, Primary, State, Independent, Specialist, Alternative Provision, Special and PRU. He has dedicated his professional life to champion children and families from under-represented backgrounds from many different parts of the world. He is a passionate social justice advocate and has been recognised for his achievements using cultural, arts and sports partnerships to facilitate positive social change.

Razia Butt MBE

Razia is an independent education adviser who has worked with schools and local authorities in navigating challenging intersectional spaces in relation to safeguarding, children’s rights and issues of equality. She is the lead adviser on the Birmingham global partnerships initiative with the British Council in Indonesia, the lead for the UNICEF Rights Respecting Schools programme and directed the response to Relationships Education during the 2019 school protests.

Since 2016, Razia has been contributing applied practice learning to Initial Teacher Training and to Educational Psychology and is supporting a range of research initiatives within the School of Education.