Meet our judges

Amanda is the headteacher of St Alfege with St Peter’s CofE Primary School and has over 20 years’ experience in the education sector. 

She is the founder of the First 100 Days Headteachers Conference, an annual event aimed at supporting new and aspiring headteachers. In 2023 Amanda published the book Letters to a Young Generation: Aspiring School Leaders which aims to encourage the next generation of Black school leaders. 

Amanda is a member of the Royal Borough of Greenwich Educate Against Racism group whose aim is to make a difference in schools by addressing racial biases and imbalances.

Carole Willis is Chief Executive of the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER).  NFER is an independent not for profit organisation dedicated to providing research and analysis to help improve outcomes for children and young people.   

Carole was formerly Chief Analyst and Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department for Education.  Her background is in economics and she has worked in a range of government departments as well as in the private sector.

Caroline is Director General of BESA, the trade association for the UK's education suppliers. More than 350 of the UK's leading education companies are BESA members, in doing so each of them sign up to abide by BESA's Code of Practice and industry standards. 

Before joining BESA in 2012 Caroline headed Communications at the Department for Education and Ofsted. Caroline has held a range of advisory positions including Joint Chair of the DfE EdTech Leadership Group and is currently a member of the Department for Education and Department for Business and Trade's Education Sector Advisory Group and a Governor at Bishop Stopfords Secondary School in the London Borough of Enfield.

Professor Dame Alison Peacock is Chief Executive of the Chartered College of Teaching, a charitable Professional Body that seeks to empower a knowledgeable and respected teaching profession through membership and accreditation.  

Prior to joining the Chartered College, Dame Alison was Executive Headteacher of The Wroxham School in Hertfordshire. Her career to date has spanned primary, secondary and advisory roles. 

She is an Honorary Fellow of Queens College Cambridge, Hughes Hall Cambridge and UCL, a Visiting Professor of both the University of Hertfordshire and Glyndŵr University and a trustee for Big Change, Institute for Educational & Social Equity and the Helen Hamlyn Trust.

A former secondary school headteacher, Christine was Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector at Ofsted from 2006 to 2011. She has substantial local authority experience as both director of education and chief executive. 

Christine is the Chair of the Education Endowment Foundation. An Honorary Fellow at UCL and visiting professor there for over 10 years, she is involved in a range of education projects. Christine has a keen interest in place-based school partnerships. She chairs Camden Learning, a schools’ partnership, and co-chairs the national organisation for area-based education partnerships (AEPA).

David James is a Deputy Head at a leading independent girls’ school in London.  

He is the author of several books on education, including Schools of Thought, which was published in March 2024 by Bloomsbury. 

He is an experienced school inspector for ISI, and has worked for a number of educational organisations, including the Department for Education and the International Baccalaureate.

Durell is Head of Governance at RSAcademics, assisting governors in the UK and overseas with professional development and reviewing their performance.

After twenty years in schools, mostly as a deputy head, he spent eleven years at the Independent Schools Inspectorate where he was responsible for liaising with heads, governors, members of the public, local authorities, ISC Associations, Ofsted and the DfE about safeguarding and quality assurance. From 2018-2022 he was Chair of the Independent Schools Examinations Board.  He is currently Chair of the Independent School Bursars’ Association Inspections Oversight Committee.

Gwen has wealth of educational experience after almost 30 years of teaching and leading in boarding and day, single sex and co-educational, maintained and independent schools in the UK. She has led teams in some of the UK’s most prestigious schools, including Roedean School and The Cheltenham Ladies’ College.

From 2011-2018, Gwen led Loughborough High School, a girls’ school in the UK East Midlands.  She was President of the Girls’ Schools Association in 2018, and since September 2019 has been the Director of Education Strategy for North London Collegiate School International, responsible for the NLCS international group of schools.

James Bowen is Assistant General Secretary at the NAHT, where he leads the organisation’s policy, press and communications teams.

He is the former Headteacher of an ‘outstanding’ junior school in Hampshire and has held a number of other leadership positions in schools, including Deputy Headteacher, SENCO and subject leader.

James has particular expertise in a number of key policy areas including: funding, assessment, accountability and curriculum. He is a regular education blogger and appears regularly on television and radio as an NAHT spokesperson.

John is Director of Product and Engineering at Oak National Academy. He was previously a teacher and senior leader in the North West.

John has worked with a wide range of organisations across education from start-ups to school trusts, and established companies and charities, including Teach Your Monster (Usborne Foundation).

John is also chair at Edapt, having co-founded the organisation in 2011.

Julie Robinson was a teacher and head before working for the prep schools’ association, IAPS, and then the Independent Schools Council, ISC.  In her current role she represents 1400 schools across the UK and appears in the national media regularly.
 
Julie advocates working together for the benefit of children in all kinds of schools.  She is a governor at an Academy and an independent school.

Lucy is the Director of Education at Shakespeare’s Globe. Her career spans professional theatre & school drama education with 20 years’ experience as a Head of Drama, lead practitioner for Greenwich & several years as Director of Drama & Theatre for a large MAT.

An experienced theatre director of productions with and for young people and families, she was Olivier nominated in 2023 for the Globe’s first, full-scale family show, Midsummer Mechanicals, with Splendid Productions. In Spring 2024 she directed Romeo and Juliet at the Globe for schools and is passionate about young people’s access to quality, live theatre.

Margaret Mulholland is SEND and Inclusion Policy Specialist for the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL). She is a leading advocate for the role schools play in improving understanding of inclusive leadership and teaching.

She also works extensively with trainee teachers and ECTs and spent many years on the Executive Board for UCET. She sits on several inclusion advisory boards including for The States of Jersey and the OCR Examination Board.

Margaret is an Honorary Norham Fellow at the University of Oxford Department of Education and writes a research column for TES.

Eunice Lumsden is the Professor of Child Advocacy and the Head of Childhood Youth and Families at the University of Northampton. She has considerable experience in the early year and has advised on Early Childhood policy, workforce qualifications.

She is a member of the Institute of Apprenticeships and Technical Qualifications, Education and Early Years Route Panel. She has also received awards for her ‘Changemaking’ work and research in the early years and child welfare.

Nationally, she has been a member of several external expert groups advising the Government of Early Years qualifications, inequalities in the early years and was an academic adviser for Best Start for Life.

Professor Samantha Twiselton, OBE is Emeritus Professor at Sheffield Hallam University and was its founding Director of Sheffield Institute of Education. She is an independent education consultant and advisor for the English and other governments and many other organisations. 

With highly regarded expertise in teacher development, Sam has been involved in shaping Government policy.  She sits on many government advisory groups and chaired the DfE Core Content in ITT group. In June 2018 she was named in the Queen's Birthday honours as a recipient of an OBE for services to Higher Education.

Simon is Joint Headteacher at Frank Wise school, a community special school for children aged between two and nineteen with severe or profound and multiple learning disabilities.

He has sat on the DfE panels developing both the Professional Standards for Teaching Assistants and the Standard for Teachers’ Professional Development and has recently supported the development of the NPQSENCO and guidance on Initial Teacher Training placements in Special schools. Simon is a member of the Teaching School Hubs Council.

He regularly writes and contributes comments and content to a range of publications and events on the theme of SEND and was recently awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Education by Brookes University.

After a career in the performing arts as a dancer, then business publishing in the technology sector and now education, Simon is leading one of the UK's specialist vocational performing arts schools. He is a writer and commentator on education, a trustee of a bursary foundation for choral singing and a Fellow of the RSA.

A keen cyclist, his hobbies include gardening, cooking and playing the trumpet. Simon is married to Dawn, a senior director in the tech sector, and they have a very noisy Airedale terrier.

Sinéad Mc Brearty is CEO at Education Support, the mental health and wellbeing charity for the education workforce across the UK.  She advocates for a systemic approach to wellbeing for the education workforce, attending to the individual, the workplace and the wider policy environment.

Sinéad began her career at KPMG before moving to leadership roles in the not-for-profit sector. She has worked as an organisational development consultant and a lecturer and has been a trustee at a number of charities including Kaleidoscope Trust and Groundswell.  She is currently a governor of a south London primary school.

Sir David began as a music teacher in 1983 and over the next 41 years has held a number of leadership roles at school, trust and system level.

David was appointed as the first Regional Schools Commissioner for the South West, Sir David in 2014 having been the founding CEO of the Cabot Learning Federation, a trust based in Bristol. He was appointed to the post of National Schools Commissioner in February 2016.

Since leaving the NSC role, Sir David has been a trustee of Centrepoint, the charity that is aiming to eradicate youth homelessness, as well as being on the board of the Talent Foundry a charity creating new opportunities through wider enrichment and support for disadvantaged children. Sir David continues to be very proud of being awarded a knighthood for his services to education in the summer of 2013.

Steve Lancashire, the founder, and former CEO of REAch2, the largest primary academy Trust in England, has over 35 years in education, including 20 as a Headteacher in challenging contexts.

As a National Leader of Education, he has supported schools nationwide and worked internationally, including as lead adviser for the UK Department for Education's London Challenge.

Knighted in 2016 for services to education, Steve specialises in executive coaching, mentoring, and bespoke MAT development.

Vijita Patel is the Principal of Swiss Cottage School Development & Research Centre, a primary, secondary, and Sixth Form special school in London. The school is an Apple Distinguished School Centre of Leadership and Educational Excellence, research incubator for EdTech, and YST Inclusion Centre of Excellence.

Vijita is passionate about empowering educators as leaders of learning design. She trains future and early career teachers on the neuroscience of learning and SEN/D. She is a National Leader of Education working with LAs, MATs, and policymakers on SEN/D and Inclusion priorities.

Vijita is a Trustee for Special Olympics Great Britain and Challenge Partners. She is on the Advisory Board for Nuffield Research and EfL, DfE Expert Advisory Group member, and Fellow of the Chartered College of Teachers.