Our team

Estelle spent 18 years teaching in an inner-city comprehensive school before being elected as the Member of Parliament for Birmingham Yardley, in 1992. She served as a schools minister in the Labour government of 1997-2001 and as Secretary of State for Education and Skills between 2001-2002. She also served as Minister for Arts from 2003-2005. Since leaving the House of Commons in 2005 Baroness Morris has held a number of posts in education, including Pro Vice-Chancellor at the University of Sunderland, Chair of the Children’s Workforce Development Council and Chair of the Institute of Effective Education. She is currently Chair of the Birmingham Education Partnership and is a member of the House of Lords.

Stuart is Honorary Professor of University College London in the Institute of Education - Curriculum, Pedagogy & Assessment. He has worked for international awarding organisations for over 20 years and is particularly interested in demonstrating how educational, psychological, and vocational tests seek to meet the demands of validity, reliability, and fairness.

Stuart Shaw began his career as a scientist/engineer, and holds a joint honours degree in Physics and Mathematics, a diploma in Applied Physics, Statistics and Electronics and a research degree in Metallurgy. His early experience, gained with an international plc (British Gas Research), covered the range of engineering specialisms. He was an experienced presenter as a scientist, lecturing for the School of Fuel Management and promoting the work of British Gas to customers from the manufacturing sector. Following a change in career path, Stuart entered the world of Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL), gaining a certificate and diploma in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and a Master’s in Teaching English for Specific Purposes (TESP). He has several years’ experience as an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teacher and as a Director of Studies within secondary and tertiary education (both in the UK and abroad).

Stuart joined Cambridge Assessment (formerly University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate, UCLES) in January 2001. He was a Senior Validation Officer with Cambridge ESOL for over six years with specific skill responsibilities for assessing second language writing. From 2007 to 2021, he was Head of Research at Cambridge Assessment International Education.

Stuart has a wide range of publications in English second language assessment and educational/psychological research journals (around 150 publications). His assessment books include:

• Examining Writing: Research and practice in assessing second language writing (Shaw & Weir, 2007)
• The IELTS Writing Assessment Revision Project: towards a revised rating scale (Shaw & Falvey, 2008)
• Validity in Educational and Psychological Assessment (Newton & Shaw, 2014)
• Language Rich: Insights from Multilingual Schools (Shaw, Imam & Hughes, 2015)
• Is Assessment Fair? (Isabel Nisbet & Stuart Shaw, 2020).

Stuart is currently working on a book with Isabel Nisbet (to be published by Routledge in 2024) entitled: Educational Assessment in a Changing World: Lessons Learned and the Path Ahead. He is also about to embark on another major writing project with research colleagues from Trinity College Dublin (Ireland) which takes as its focus externally moderated school-based assessment from an international perspective.

Stuart is Chair of the Board of Trustees, Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors (CIEA) and a Fellow of the Institute. He is also a Fellow of the Association for Educational Assessment in Europe (AEA-Europe). Stuart is an elected member of the Council of AEA-Europe and is Chair of its Scientific Programme Committee. He is also an elected member of the Board of Trustees of the International Association for Educational Assessment (IAEA) and Chair of the IAEA Communications Committee.

Stuart has contributed to international debates on validity and fairness (see, for example, Special Issue of Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 2016) and more recently at The British Educational Research Association (BERA) Presidential Roundtable (2022). Stuart regularly presents at British, European and International conferences and has given keynote presentations.

Mick’s teaching career extended over eighteen years including work in secondary, sixth form and Further Education institutions as well as work in Higher Education as an external examiner.  He has worked as a local education authority advisory teacher and as a general adviser working with primary and secondary schools. Throughout his career, he has been closely associated with the assessment system holding the posts of chief examiner, senior moderator and external university examiner.

Mick joined the National Curriculum Council in 1992 and worked on several iterations of the National Curriculum and non-statutory guidance. Following his position as head of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority’s (QCA) regulatory monitoring programme of general and vocational awarding bodies, Mick played a key role in the National Assessment Authority’s (NAA) modernisation programme leading on support for examiner recruitment and recognition of their professional status through the formation of what is now the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors (CIEA). Following delivery failures of national curriculum tests in 2008, Mick took on the post of Acting Managing Director of the NAA and is credited with re-building the national curriculum assessment system.

A former acting Director of QCA and Executive Director of Education at the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (QCDA), Mick was accountable for National Curriculum assessments, supporting the delivery of general qualifications and oversight of the National Curriculum. He was an adviser to the DfE Expert Group on Assessment in 2009 and supported the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) Commission on Assessment in 2014. Mick was a member of the DfE Independent Teacher Workload Review Group and an adviser to the DfE Workload Team.  He has acted as an Associate Director of the AQA awarding body, an Adviser to the Welsh and Pakistan Governments, PwC and FrogEducation. Mick is Vice-Chair of the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors (CIEA), Chair of the Evidence Based Education (EBE) Advisory Board, and Chairs the Assessment Committee of the Institute of Directors (IoD). He was a member of the Joint Council for Qualifications’ (JCQ) Commission on Malpractice in Public Examinations and has advised the DfE Educational Technology and Data Policy Teams. Mick is a lay member of the Health Research Authority Ethics Committee and lay member of the University of Leeds Business, Environment and Social Sciences Research Ethic Committee. He has chaired and presented to numerous conferences and lead training on education and assessment to a range of organisations in the UK and aboard.

Examples of recent projects include:

1. Designing the NAHT Curriculum and Assessment Framework. (2015)
2. Research and advisory support for the DfE Teacher Workload groups on Marking and Data (2015 and on-going).
3. Providing a framework for the evaluation of schools’ curriculum and assessment systems across the world for Opportunity International Pathways to Excellence (2017);
4. Development of an Assessment Policy and Curriculum Framework for the Punjab – sponsored by DFID (2017);
5. Member of the Independent Commission on Examination Malpractice (2019).

Mick holds a PhD in educational assessment from the University of Leeds and degrees at Masters and Bachelor levels. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Founding Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching and a Fellow of the CIEA. He is passionate about education and aligning the aims of national high volume assessment and testing systems with the aims and realities of everyday teaching and learning in schools, colleges and the workplace to benefit society and to support each individual learner to reach their true potential.

Janet Crook (MA, BA, PGCE) has worked in education since 1994 as a teacher of English, moving into leadership and management in FE and Sixth Form Colleges. The main focus of her roles in management has been quality assurance and improvement. Janet moved into local authority in 2009, working in Children, Young People and Learning before taking on a role as the CEO of an education charity for children and young people with learning difficulties and disabilities. Janet’s work in assessment began in assessment delivery in 1998 as an examiner, and since then she has been examiner, moderator, Senior Examiner, Principal Examiner, Chief Examiner and Chair of Examiners on a range of English qualifications including GCSE, International GCSE, A Level and Functional Skills. These roles encompass writing, revising, scrutinising and subject checking assessment materials, writing support materials for teachers and providers, producing video support materials and working in collaboration on writing textbooks. This work helped move her into the sphere of assessment design and production, working as part of the team redeveloping the GCSE as part of the 2015 reforms and beyond. Janet is currently the Chief Examiner for two high-stakes English qualifications with a large awarding organisation, and since taking the leap into working full-time in assessment in 2017 she has taken on assessment design and production activities in technical qualifications for two awarding organisations. Janet has been a Fellow of the CIEA for over 10 years and is a self-confessed ‘assessment geek’ with particular interests being quality assurance, accessibility and different modes of assessment, having worked to support the development of fully online GCSE-level English assessments.

Neil King, BA (Durham), PGCE (Cambridge) was at various times Head of English, Director of Sixth Form and Senior Master at Hymers College, Hull, UK. He has been an examiner since 1970 and has worked for four different GCE/GCSE boards and for the International Baccalaureate, where he has just finished a fixed term as Deputy Chief Examiner for English. He has served as Team Leader and Principal Examiner for several examinations, and was Chief Examiner for English Literature in the former Oxford & Cambridge Schools Examination Board. He is the author or editor of over 60 publications. He is joint Artistic Director of Other Lives Productions, a professional theatre company based in Yorkshire, UK (see www.otherlives.org.uk). In 2004 he was a founder member of what is now the CIEA.

Dr Joanna Goodman is an educationalist with a vast experience of school leadership, both in maintained and independent sectors.  She has worked at every key stage in education.

She graduated with a Doctor in Education degree from University of London, King’s College London, where she researched the role of assessment in improving learning outcomes. Her assessment expertise is internationally recognised, and she has been widely published in the UK and abroad, including peer-reviewed publications.

Her research interests include educational assessment, teaching and learning, and leadership development.

She is an Educational Consultant and a Director of Cromwell Consulting Ltd, and a school inspector. She is also a Fellow of The Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors, which she joined when it was first established. Joanna is a member of The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guideline committee working on developing national clinical guidelines.

Carolyn has been a Fellow member of the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors since 2013. She taught English for 35 years in a range of UK secondary schools: state, comprehensive, grammar, independent, day, and boarding; she has also held senior positions in British and other international schools. Since 2011 she has been a freelance consultant, specialising in assessment.

Carolyn has been an examiner for many boards, starting with Oxford in 1980. Until 2017 she was Deputy Chief Examiner for IB English Literature and is currently Principal Examiner for one of its components and an exam paper setter.

She has served on many ISI inspection teams, in the UK and overseas, was an English consultant to Chris Woodhead’s Cognita group, has been involved in INSET provision for the European Council of International Schools and is generally an all-round enthusiast for high standards in education.

Tracey has managed a beauty business as a sole proprietor and worked in the Government Sector for over 15 years, mainly within UK Courts. She has over 13 years experience in business leadership, management, and operational delivery.

Tracey’s passion is mentoring, and she brings expertise in mentoring from across different industries such as the Government Sector, Education and Third Sector and has incorporated mentoring within every facet of her working career.

Tracey has recently engaged in education consultancy on pedagogy, curriculum, module design, student support, assessment and delivery of pedagogy and assessments, quality assurance of education.

She is dedicated to SoTL through recently working recently with the Open University’s SCiLAB (Scholarship Centre for online legal and business education) and working with Open University academics on CoCrea8LT, a research project looking at co-creation of technology courses.

Tracey is a Chartered Member of CIPD, Associate member of the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors, Member of the UK Register of Career Development Professionals and sits on the Board of Governors for an Education Trust, Corporation Board for a College and has held Chair for an EDI Committee as well as Chair for Board of Directors of an educational consultancy.

Tim Sherriff is the Interim Chair of the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors. He is an educational consultant. Ofsted Inspector and a Lead Reviewer for Challenge Partners.

Tim has recently completed forty years working within the primary education sector. He has spent the last twenty-four years as headteacher of two primary schools, both serving areas of high deprivation in Wigan. Until August 2022 Tim was Headteacher and Head of Centre at Westfield Community School and Start Well Family Centre in Wigan which was rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted in May 2010 and again in May 2013. Westfield had been a designated NCTL Teaching School and National Support School. Tim was accredited as a National Leader of Education and supported many schools in this role. In 2007 he was named as the NCSL Headteacher of the Year in a Primary School for the Northwest of England. Tim has a vast experience relating to school inspections.

Tim has a particular expertise in assessment. In 2011, Tim was invited to be a panel member of Independent Review of Key Stage 2 testing, assessment and accountability led by Lord Bew. He was also a member of the NAHT’s Commission on Assessment in 2014 and is currently a member of their Assessment and Accountability Group and a Co-opted member of the National Executive’s Primary Sector Council. In 2018 Tim was a member of the NAHT’s Accountability Commission. Tim was a member of the Ofsted Headteacher Reference Group for the North of England and has given evidence to the Education Select Committee in Westminster. He was invited to deliver training on assessment in his school to Ofsted’s Her Majesty’s Inspectors (Northwest) He chairs and speaks at national conferences on assessment, behaviour and attendance. Recently, Tim has delivered training for the DfE on Reducing Teacher Workload.

Dr Nic Crossley, CEO of Liberty Academy Trust, has over 25 years’ experience in education which spans primary, secondary, mainstream and specialist provision and her research interests are in the factors which contribute to educational underachievement.

Her current role involves working with schools to enhance the learning experience for all vulnerable learners; however, her specialist interest areas are Autism and Social, Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH).  She is a trained Pupil Premium Reviewer, MAT SEND Reviewer, Chartered Educational Assessor and Fellow of the CIEA (Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors).

She has previous experience as a Consultant Principal to two Special Academies, as a School Inspector, and has written and led leadership development training for middle and senior leaders in Primary, Secondary and Special education in England, Wales and Jersey.

She is the co-author of Inclusion: A Principled Guide for School Leaders, published by Routledge, as part of the NASEN Spotlight series.

Nic has contributed to the development of the Whole School SEND MAT Review Guide and was a recent member of the DfE roundtable to improve the availability and use of SEND data from the Get Information about Schools register, a recent member of the ‘Task and Finish’ group for the development of the Early Career Framework from a SEND perspective, and a recent member of the Ofsted and CQC Area SEND Advisory Group.

She is currently a Council member for ASCL (Association of School and College Leaders), a member of the Ethics, Inclusion and Equalities Committee, the national SEND representative, and Chair of the Women Leaders’ Network.

She is also a former member of the Whole School SEND Steering Group and co-founder of the MAT SEND Leaders Group with fellow practitioner Simon Tanner of Bohunt Education Trust.

With a Masters in Educational Leadership and Management and a Masters in Practice-Based Educational Research, Nic is also an Associate Tutor at Leeds Beckett University delivering modules for undergraduates as part of the BSc Educational Psychology and PGCE Primary Education and is an Honorary Teaching fellow at the Centre for Teacher Education at the University of Warwick.

Channels and recent publications

You can find Dr Nic Crossley on Twitter

Crossley, N (2023) National Careers Week: Six Ideas to Support Students with SEND into Work (London, Schools Week)

Crossley, N (2023) Why Wait until 2025 to Tackle the SEND Postcode Lottery (London, Times Educational Supplement)

Crossley, N (2022) Children with SEND are Vulnerable – and the Most Exposed (London, Times Educational Supplement)

Crossley, N and Hewitt, D (2021) Inclusion: A Principled Guide for School Leaders (London, Routledge)

Crossley, N (2021) Voices for Change (London, Association of School and College Leaders).

Crossley, N (2020) Closing the Opportunity Gap for Learners with SEND Beyond the Pandemic (London, Queen Street Group).

A former senior compliance practitioner to director level, Sharon is well qualified with extensive practical experience in Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) related matters. Passionate about developing individuals to support personal growth and professional practice within industry, over the past three decades she has been actively involved in a number of initiatives in this field. This included the early days development of a new professional body (the International Compliance Association) with roles spanning Global Head of Education & Training, Development Director and, more recently as part of her growing portfolio of roles, Chief Examiner (GRC).

Acting as a trusted Board/Committee Advisor and as an Assessor and Trainer, Sharon has supported organisations and individuals on a range of GRC related projects: ongoing work as an assessor of individuals (from new entrants through to senior leaders) including Apprentice assessment; as Module Director for the Financial Services Compliance Elective of the Chartered Banker MBA programme (CBMBA) at Bangor Business School; as Editor/Member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Business Compliance; as author of, and contributor to, professional education texts and journals.

She previously served as Chair of the Compliance Institute in the UK, where she was a member of its Professional Education Board. Sharon holds an MSc in Financial Regulation & Compliance Management, is a Fellow of the ICA and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors.

Kathy has spent 45 years working in and for public education. She began her teaching career in Inner city Manchester and went on to have three secondary headships. The last headship was as the Principal in one of the first of a new type of schools introduced in the early 2000s. This was a city academy in Moss Side Manchester.

Lord Andrew Adonis in his book ‘Education, Education, Education’ described its predecessor school as one of the most gang infested comprehensive schools in the country. Just over five years later it was judged to be outstanding. After this she worked as Deputy CEO in one of the largest MATs in the country.

She has also been a Director of Education in two LEAs, worked as a senior adviser in the DFE, been a visiting professor at Salford Business School and worked as an interim CEO.

She became a Dame in the 2014 New Years honours list. Her book ‘Building an academy school in the UK: With Principal” (Cambridge Scholastic’ pubs) was published in June 2022.

She is married with two sons and continues to work independently in education in the maintained and independent sector.

A Fellow and Chartered Educational Assessor of the CIEA since 2013, David has worked for a professional body, the International Compliance Association. He provided expertise and direction in assessments and associated governance, management systems and compliance for over a decade. He established an End-Point Assessment organisation obtaining recognition for delivery of five Standards by ESFA, has worked closely with standards developers in Trailblazer groups to produce standards and their assessment plans that received approval from IfATE.

Working with programme designers, David successfully took postgraduate diploma programmes through validation processes with University of Manchester, Alliance Manchester Business School and with the University of Law. David designed and developed quality management systems, which includes a peer-reviewed development tool for professional and vocational qualifications from level 3 to level 7, for assessment operations and the risk governance model that supports its function.

David recently started Agora Business Consulting to support education, training and apprenticeships providers in the spectrum of their diverse assessment and governance activities.

Ian has been a Fellow the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors for several years. He taught Economics, Business, ICT, and maths or 35 years in a range of UK education environments including some approved by HM and in deprived areas in the North East. He finished full-time teaching at Whickham School, Gateshead.

As a Chief Examiner with Pearson and a Principal Standards Verifier also with Pearson, Ian has been involved in setting, marking, and moderating a range of subject both academic
and vocational. With NCFE Ian has been Chair of Functional Skills (maths). He has held a Principal Examiner role (English) with NOCN.

More recently Ian has been involved with exam inspections. He conducts extensive IQA and EQA work with a variety of centres.

Over the years Ian has written a GCSE Business textbook and various textbooks for BTEC courses.

Quality Assurance is at the heart of everything in which Ian believes and promotes.

Alison McCree (BSc., PGCE., MA.) is Director of the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors based at the University of Hertfordshire. She has almost thirty years' experience in education, having taught English as a Foreign Language in Japan, Denmark and the UK, before qualifying as a science teacher. She taught in the secondary sector prior to joining the University of Hertfordshire as a professional development lead for the Science Learning Centre in 2007, developing and delivering continuing professional development for science teachers. She also headed up the Triple Science Support Programme for East of England and Central regions and managed the UK arm of the Amgen Biotech Experience programme.

In 2016, the University of Hertfordshire became the home of the CIEA and Alison was appointed Director. The role encompasses all aspects of operational management of the membership, training and voice activities of the CIEA.  Key areas of development have been the reintroduction of the Chartered Educational Assessor qualification and developing bespoke assessment training courses for a number of clients.

Alison has also taught on the BA in Education at the University of Hertfordshire and is a visiting tutor, supporting trainee teachers on initial teacher education programmes.

Miranda began her career in local government where she worked in both the legal and print department as a secretary then type setter. She then moved into office based work where she became an Account Executive, and then progressed into production. Alongside this, she joined the Royal Navy Reserve in 1991 and is now a Petty Officer in the warfare seaman specialisation of which she was mobilised in 2011 for 8 months.

Miranda went into bookkeeping in 2002 and is now a member of The Institute of Certified Bookkeepers. She joined the CIEA in May as the organisation’s Accounts Administrator. Her methodical and investigative approach makes her a valuable and hardworking member of the team.

The CIEA Administration team is based at the University of Hertfordshire, they are a close-knit team who work together on a wide range of administration tasks covering membership, training, finance and marketing.

Dr Newman Burdett is an educational assessment expert and has previously been Head of Ministry Partnerships working on state education and examination reform projects for Cambridge Assessment and also the Head of Centre for International Comparisons at the National Foundational for Educational Research in the UK, responsible for PISA and TIMSS in the UK. He is currently working as a freelance assessment expert.

He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors and a Fellow of the AEA-Europe. He sits on the Aga Khan University Examination Board Executive Committee and DFID’s Intellectual Leadership Team for Research Informed Systems of Education.