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Cambridge 2024
Saturday 20 April 2024
Cambridge University Press and Assessment, Cambridge
Cambridge CEM is delighted to welcome you to researchED Cambridge!
Join educators, researchers and education enthusiasts at this in-person event for a day of insightful discussions and engaging presentations. Dive into the latest research and exchange ideas that will shape the future of education.
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08:30
Registration
The event opens at 08:30 for registrations.
Main Space
09:30
Welcome
Speaker: Tom Bennett
Main Space
10:00
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - the many meanings of ‘Personalised Learning’
Speaker: Tim Oates
Main Space
+
‘Personalisation’ of learning burst onto the education scene in England during 2004. Whilst it had obvious antecedents in Dewey’s concern for engaging all learners and in the resulting models of ‘learner-centred’ education, ‘personalisation’ was launched as a transformative and progressive model for public education. Since then, ‘personalised learning’ has become a mantra in the edtech industry. But it is no simple idea. It is used to describe VERY different approaches to learning design and pedagogic practice. This presentation will trace the recent history of ‘personalised learning’ and will argue that some forms of personalised learning and assessment can enhance equity and attainment, other forms threaten one or both of these things.
10:40
Break
10:50
Session 1 Options
Option 1
Habitual learner
Speaker: Shabnam Ahmed
NWG1
+
What are habits and why are they so important to learning? How do we form habits and how do we make them stick? This session will look at various ways to develop good behaviour for learning habits in your students, based on research on behaviour change.
Option 2
Pupil Book Study: avoid assumptions
Speaker: Alex Bedford
NWG2
+
How to systematically talk with pupils and evaluate the endurance of learning. The question was how to do that without feeling underprepared and wasting valuable time asking questions that lack structure and impact. Pupil Book Study has been acknowledged as one main influences for the Ofsted Deep Dive methodology. It offers a researched-informed, systematic toolkit enabling leaders and teachers to focus on evaluating the curriculum, teaching and long-term learning. Used by schools across the world.
Option 3
Why school leaders are paying attention to the wrong things and what can we do about it
Speaker: Claire Stoneman
NWG3
+
School leaders often have little time to examine things with what Maryanne Wolf calls a 'quiet eye'. Claire will explore some of the ways in which school leaders' eyes are drawn to things which accompany but do not necessarily cause an event, and how school leaders can be hindered by the temptation of 'cruel optimism' - the prospect of the change that’s going to come, but solutions presented that are simplistic and difficult to attain. She will argue that there is a glut of cruel optimism in education at present which may be hindering rather than causing school improvement. Claire will offer some ways forward to help school leaders attend to our schools with more awareness and rationality, so we can think more effectively, and make better decisions.
Option 4
Improving the curriculum and assessment for 11-16 year olds
Speakers: Charles Clarke and Paul Steer
SG1
+
There is plenty of literature to suggest that the current curriculum and assessment arrangements for 11-16 year olds are in need of review. Since the last major revisions to GCSEs were introduced in 2015, there has been no systematic review. Whereas we have a strong foundation to build on there are certainly some areas that need a close look. These include: the burden of assessment at 16, the balance between exams and other types of assessment, the impact of current maths and English GCSEs, and the need for the curriculum to move with the times. And we need to have a coherent plan for responding to changes in technology. Charles Clarke and Paul Steer have been heading up an OCR review and are keen to share some of their findings to date and to hear your views.
We have a teacher survey asking teachers for their views and opinions of 11-16 curriculum and assessment. Our second survey is for students to share with us their opinions and experiences of 11-16 education.
Option 5
The truth about permanent exclusions
Speaker: Andrew Old
SG2
+
Few education issues have been more contentious in recent years than the use of permanent exclusions in schools. Much of what has been reported in the media hasn't been true. This talk looks at what the statistics actually show.
Option 6
Exam access outside the mainstream: Challenges and opportunities
Speaker: Katie Finlayson
SG3
+
Home education is growing in the UK, with around 30,000 14-16 year olds educated outside of schools. How do these young people access GCSEs and other qualifications? We'll explore some of the challenges, and also look at the different approaches home educating families opt for.
11:30
Break
11:40
Session 2 Options
Option 1
MOPaRE - A simple model of secure schema development
Speaker: Michael Hobbiss
NWG1
+
Arguably one of the primary purposes of education is to allow students to apply the things that they know to new settings, but this is often easier said than done. Transferring information between contexts requires students to form schemas which are both detailed and flexible. This talk will initially draw on the neuroscience of learning to produce a simple model for the formation of these sorts of schemas in the classroom: multiple, overlapping, partial representations (MOPaRe). We will then look at how the MOPaRe model has influenced my own teaching and curriculum planning, and how it might influence yours.
Option 2
CPD at scale
Speaker: Sufian Sadiq
NWG2
+
This session will explore systems and mechanisms that enable CPD across a MAT and across a region. Sufian will draw on his experience to codify best practice in a multi-school environment. He will also explore ways to develop and also retain people, at a time when retention is a key challenge - CPD can be used as a key lever to retain.
Option 3
Primary grammar progression - from novice to expert
Speakers: Emma Slade and Tricia Moss
NWG3
+
This session demonstrates how our English curriculum at DEMAT breaks down the writing process into its transferable parts to ensure that our writers develop syntactic control. We will look at this through the lens of teaching the correct comma usage. We discuss how we explicitly teach comma usage from year 1 to year 6, directly linking with Daisy Christodoulou’s work with ‘The Writing Hub’ alongside the research underpinning ‘The Writing Revolution’ by Hochman and Wexler.
Option 4
Bringing live feedback into the classroom
Speaker: Emily Pringle
SG1
+
This session will focus on the principles of effective feedback and how this can be brought into the classroom through live marking. We will look at the key principles behind feedback, why these are important and practical ways to make live marking work in a busy classroom.
Option 5
Why learning fails (and what to do about it)
Speaker: Alex Quigley
SG2
+
Alex explores the most common reasons why pupils’ learning fails. Issues include patchwork prior knowledge, misconceptions, a lack of independence, low motivation, and more. Alex draws upon research evidence from cognitive science to plot the path for pupil success.
Option 6
Speech to Print : How we learn to read and write
Speaker: Hydeh Fayaz
SG3
+
In the session I aim to present the international research and theory of our writing system and how this impacts on how we learn to read, spell and write fluently. I will present what the evidence suggests about how we can teach our children to read using a speech to print approach and share the implementation of Sounds Write. I will share why and how we devised a spelling programme for KS2 which uses a speech to print approach and will enable our children to develop strategies for reading, writing and spelling from Reception to KS2 and beyond.
12:20
Lunch
Canteen
13:10
Teachers, technology and assessment
Speaker: Daisy Christodoulou
Main Space
+
The case for an ed tech revolution: Ed tech has so much potential, both for teachers and learners, so why hasn’t it yet had the transformative impact on education that has long been promised?
13:50
Break
14:00
Session 3 Options
Option 1
AI in education - pancakes and some emerging research themes
Speaker: Jane Waite
NWG1
+
The first pancake is never the best, but we must start somewhere. In this session, I will introduce a simple way to help frame how we think about the ways AI tools and AI technology might be used in our teaching practice. As we look at each "pancake", I'll share some related emerging research themes, including FATPS, SEAME, CT2.0, anthropomorphisation, and feedback literacy. Here are some new acronyms and terms to get to know. Let's discuss and consider what they might mean for teaching and learning.
Option 2
What is problem-solving in maths anyway?
Speaker: David Thomas
NWG2
+
What is good problem-solving in mathematics? We conducted a trial with 1700 pupils and 140 teachers, using comparative judgement to assess answers to a set of mathematical reasoning problems. In this session we’ll look at how pupils did and what we can learn from it. In particular we’ll explore the disconnect between how problem-solving is often experienced in school, and how generic approaches neglect the knowledge needed to solve problems effectively.
Option 3
Does the use of shared resources hinder teacher development?
Speaker: Dora Olah
NWG3
+
This session will explore the effects of using shared resources on pre-service and in-service teachers’ pedagogical development. Building on research evidence from the past 20 years, as well as considering the increasingly wider availability of online lesson materials, I will discuss the benefits and drawbacks of using pre-made resources. The context of the session will be mainly primary and secondary mathematics, but the conclusions are transferable to other subject areas as well.
Option 4
Better reading: strategic planning to put reading at the centre of classroom practice
Speaker: Jenna Wyatt
SG1
+
Research into reading now tells us a lot about how accomplished readers are successful when they read. How can we use this evidence to build a more impactful approach to using text in the classroom? This session looks at the elements that build a strategic reader and considers how these can translate into teachers' planning and explicit teaching of reading, so that pupils can access texts successfully and build reading skills which will enhance their life chances.
Option 5
Making vocabulary stick: what we have learned about explicit vocabulary instruction and implementation
Speakers: Andy Samways and Lauren Meadows
SG2
+
Many schools have embraced the importance of placing vocabulary front and centre of their curriculum provision. But how do we ensure that pupils' receptive understanding of new language translates into long-term expressive stores of vocabulary that can be applied correctly in context and retained over time? At Unity Research School, we explored this through our Early Stage Development Programme and in the process, learned a huge amount about vocabulary instruction and the implementation cycle. Join Lauren and Andy to hear more about the underpinning mental model for explicit vocabulary instruction and the implementation triumphs and pitfalls that we experienced.
Option 6
Social, emotional and behavioural effects of poor reading in adolescents
Speaker: James Murphy
SG3
+
This session will outline the various psychological and behavioral problems that can arise for adolescents after years of being unable to read well in a system where reading is ubiquitous. We will then consider the protective factors that reading provides for young people, and lastly look at the growing evidence that remarkable improvement in reading for adolescents is possible.
14:40
Break
15:00
Session 4 Options
Option 1
Diary of a coach in training
Speaker: Paul Cline
NWG1
+
There’s good evidence that instructional coaching can be an incredibly effective form of professional development. But what’s it like to actually be an instructional coach? What makes a good coach? What are the knowledge and skills required? How does a coach get better? Drawing on both wider research and case study examples, this session explores what it means to be a good instructional coach, and considers a model of responsive coaching.
Option 2
School improvement at pace
Speaker: Nigel Whittle
NWG2
+
How do you turn things around in tough schools very rapidly and bring people with you at the same time?
This session covers many practical, on the ground school improvement strategies for even the most challenging and disadvantaged schools, particularly in relation to behaviour, culture and standards.
Option 3
How can school based mentors support their trainee teachers to thrive?
Speakers: Ruth Standing and Lauren Oates
NWG3
+
Mentors play an invaluable role in the development of trainee teachers. But what can mentors take from educational research when considering how best to support trainees to thrive? We’ll unpick 3 common problems faced by trainees. We’ll explore issues connected to trainee motivation and the powerful potential for mentors to foster feelings of self-efficacy. And we’ll review evidence-informed approaches that can support trainees to develop positive habits just at the right point in their careers.
Option 4
Making learning challenging
Speaker: Elliot Morgan
SG1
+
This session will explore what challenge in learning really is, the conditions necessary for making learning challenging in the classroom and ways we can sustain challenge throughout a course of learning.
Option 5
Teachers’ experiences of teaching during the Covid-19 pandemic and some positive implications
Speakers: Filio Constantino and Matthew Carroll
SG2
+
The Covid-19 pandemic caused unprecedented global disruption to education. There is now an opportunity to reflect on what happened to better understand the impacts, and to learn lessons about what did – or did not – work for teachers. In this talk, we will present the findings of research that surveyed teachers around the world to record their views about the impacts on students and teachers, and their experiences of teaching through the pandemic. We will share the key findings, including those relating to learning loss, wellbeing, and experiences of remote teaching. We will also discuss some of the positive outcomes of the pandemic, as these emerged from follow-up interviews with some of the survey respondents.
15:40
Break
15:50
Panel: where do we go from here?
Speakers: Tom Bennett and guest panel - David Thomas, Andrew Smith, Daisy Christodoulou
Main space
+
What are the gains that have been made in education over the last ten years, and what do we need to focus on now?
16:30
Event Close
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Tim Oates
Group Director, ARD, Cambridge University Press & AssessmentTim Oates is Group Director of Assessment Research and Development at Cambridge University Press & Assessment, focusing on national and international research on assessment and measurement. He has published widely on assessment and curriculum. He has undertaken wide-ranging international comparison of the performance of education systems, and advised OECD on its curriculum review work. In 2010 he published ‘Could do better’ which laid down the principles for the review of the National Curriculum in England. From 2010-2013, he was chair of the Expert Panel for Review of the National Curriculum. In 2014, Tim published ‘Why textbooks count’, a study examining the structural role of textbooks in educational reform. This led to national debate and co-ordinated work by publishers, on enhancing both the quality and patterns of use of learning materials. More recent work in Sweden has supported the revised policy on learning materials there. His ‘Cambridge Approach to improving education’ has been used in the development of educational improvement policy in a wide range of nations. Tim routinely provides briefings and advice to UK and other governments. He is a Fellow of Churchill College Cambridge. In 2015 he was awarded a CBE for services to education.
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Daisy Christodoulou
Director of Education, No More MarkingDaisy is the Director of Education at No More Marking, a provider of online Comparative Judgement software for schools, and also the author of three books about education: Teachers vs Tech, Making Good Progress, and Seven Myths about Education.
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Charles Clarke
Former Education Secretary, 2002-2004Charles Clarke was a Member of Parliament from 1997 to 2010. From 2002 to 2004 he was Secretary of State for Education and Skills before becoming Home Secretary until 2006. He now holds Visiting Professorships at Lancaster University and Kings College London and works with educational organisations internationally. He is a consultant on international education reform for Cambridge Partnership for Education. Charles is chairing OCRs review into 11-16 curriculum and assessment
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Tricia Moss
Trust Curriculum Lead, DEMATTricia leads on curriculum planning and delivery across our trust of 40 primary schools. A former publisher, her specialist area is English and she has lead on the co-creation of a trust wide curriculum for writing.
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Alex Bedford
Curriculum Development Director, Unity Schools PartnershipAlex Bedford is the Curriculum Development Director for Unity Schools Partnership. He leads the research-led partnership serving 140,000 pupils. Author of the highly acclaimed Pupil Book Study - highly praised by Prof Rob Coe and Clare Sealy. Alex has worked as an associate consultant for the Institute of Education, UCL.
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Tom Bennett
Founder, researchEDTom Bennett is the founder of researchED, and the UK government's advisor on school behaviour
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Alex Quigley
Head of Content & Engagement, EEFAlex is a former teacher who now works as Head of Content & Engagement at the Education Endowment Foundation. His work focuses on helping teachers access clear and actionable research evidence. He is the author of the newly published, ‘Why Learning Fails (And What To Do About It)’.
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Paul Steer
Director of Policy, OCRPaul Steer is OCR’s Director of Policy, with over twenty years of experience in education and assessment, he chairs the Cambridge Assessment Higher Education Forum, and the OCR Board for Teacher and Professional Organisations. He has led on a variety of developments within OCR, including, in recent years, OCR’s response to Post 16 reform of vocational and technical education, Cambridge University Press and Assessment’s response to the proposed Advanced British Standard, and on the need to review approaches to Maths and English GCSEs.
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Shabnam Ahmed
Head of EnglishShabnam Ahmed is a Head of English in a secondary school in Suffolk.
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Jane Waite
Senior Research Scientist, Raspberry Pi FoundationJane is an experienced and well-published computing education researcher. She is the senior research scientist, leading the computing education research team, at the Raspberry Pi Foundation. The team is part of the Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre, a joint initiative with the University of Cambridge. Jane and her team investigate a wide range of topics, including culturally relevant teaching, teaching about AI, using AI to support programming, Legitimation Code Theory and a host of other areas. You can find out more about Jane’s research interests at https://janewaite.com/
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Claire Stoneman
Principal, Four Dwellings AcademyClaire Stoneman is Principal of Four Dwellings Academy, Birmingham, where she also teaches English. She established researchED Birmingham in 2018. Claire is an avid reader and writer, contributing to a number of publications, and can be found blogging at www.birminghamteacher.wordpress.com. She is Visiting Professor of school leadership in the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at Aston University. Claire tweets at @stoneman_claire.
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Emily Pringle
Teacher; Research & Development LeadI am a History teacher and Research and Development Lead (NPQLTD) in North Lincolnshire with responsibility for planning & delivering CPD based on evidence informed strategies. I love reading, researching and talking all things teaching and learning and am passionate about helping others develop.
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Lauren Meadows
Curriculum Advisor, Unity Schools PartnershipWorking across the field of education as a teacher, school leader and founding Director of Greenfields Education, Lauren Meadows currently works as a Curriculum Advisor for Unity Schools Partnership. Lauren has worked with a wide range of national organisations, advising on curriculum and assessment design and strategic school improvement, including partnering with Alex Bedford to co-author the internationally acclaimed Curriculum for Unity Schools Partnership (CUSP). Central to all that Lauren does is her commitment to distilling evidence into practice and it is through her work with Unity Research School that this ambition is realised.
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Emma Slade
Headteacher, DEMATHeadteacher, DEMAT.
Co-contributor to WALKTHRUs Vol 3 by Tom Sherrington and Oliver Caviglioli and contributor to Organising Ideas by Oliver Caviglioli and David Goodwin
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David Thomas
CEO, Axiom MathsDavid Thomas is CEO of Axiom Maths. He has been a maths teacher, a secondary school headteacher, and a government advisor. He co-founded Oak National Academy to support schools during the Covid-19 pandemic, and received an OBE for services to education in 2020.
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Hydeh Fayaz
Deputy Head Teacher & Associate Director, St Matthews Research SchoolHydeh Fayaz is the Deputy Head Teacher and Associate Director of St Matthews Research School in Birmingham. St Matthews is an accredited Sounds Write Training Centre. Hydeh has worked with Oracy Cambridge, The Exemplary Leadership Programme and is currently working on The Rethinking Curriculum Project as part of the Chartered College work.
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Jenna Wyatt
TeacherJenna Wyatt is a former English teacher, Head of English and Senior Leader with more than 19 years’ experience working in state schools in Sussex. As an SLE, she supported schools across the county in developing their middle leadership teams as well as working with Heads of English to strategically plan English curricula. In her current role at Ambition, Jenna has worked on developing the ITT programme for secondary English specialists as well as designing professional pedagogy strands of ITT with a particular focus on literacy development. As part of this work, she has been looking at the implications of reading in the secondary classroom and how the evidence base can be used to inform teachers’ planning of ways to make reading more strategic and accessible for pupils.
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Andy Samways
Director of Research & Teaching Schools, Unity Schools PartnershipAndy is Director of Teaching School Hub and Research School at Unity Schools Partnership, a multi-academy trust with a family of schools in East Anglia. Leading one of the 33 Research Schools of the EEF’s Research Schools Network, Andy supports partnership development, promoting the use of evidence to improve teaching practice so it really makes a difference in the classroom. In his work leading Unity Teaching School Hub, Andy is involved in programmes growing the expertise of trainees, ECTs and NPQ participants. A member of the Royal Society Education Committee, he has a particular interest in utilising evidence around effective implementation at a variety of scales within school improvement.
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Dora Olah
TeacherDora Olah is a secondary Mathematics and Computing teacher in West London, and a freelance KS3/4 Resource Creator at DrFrostLearning. She is studying on the MA in Mathematics Education course at the Institute of Education at UCL. Her research interest is the effective use of resources and teacher education.
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Matthew Carroll
Senior Researcher, Cambridge University Press & AssessmentMatthew is a senior researcher in Cambridge University Press & Assessment’s groupwide research division, with special responsibility for CEM-focused research. He has worked in education research since 2017, but prior to this was a scientist working in the field of conservation ecology. Matthew holds a degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge, and an MRes and PhD from the University of York. He has also been a science communicator, working with school groups in the North East of England.
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Nigel Whittle
Head of School Improvement, Leadership MattersNigel started teaching English, he took middle and senior roles. He started his first Headship in 2012. The school had never been judged ‘Good’ but achieved this quickly. Subsequently, Nigel went onto roles rooted in school improvement including Education Director leading in some of the most deprived parts of England.
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Elliot Morgan
Curriculum Advisor, Knowledge Schools TrustElliot is a curriculum advisor and teacher educator for the Knowledge Schools Trust. His work includes curriculum design, observing and coaching teachers, and writing and delivering professional development to the five schools within his trust and the 300 schools within the Primary Knowledge Curriculum partnership.
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Paul Cline
Director of Teaching & LearningPaul Cline is Director of Teaching and Learning at an Independent School in Suffolk. He leads on CPD and has introduced an instructional coaching program to the school. Paul is also a Psychology teacher (former HoD) with 18 years experience across a range of schools.
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Katie Finlayson
Home EducatorA long term home educator, Katie Finlayson has been involved in local and national peer support for 15 years. As a trustee of the Home Educators’ Qualifications Association, she aims to improve the opportunities for home educated children to access important assessments like GCSEs.
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Ruth Standing
Fellow of Initial Teacher Training, Ambition InstituteRuth is an experienced teacher educator who has worked for many years supporting trainees both in schools and as a university tutor. Ruth currently works as a Fellow of Initial Teacher Training at Ambition Institute.
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James Murphy
Co-Founder, Thinking ReadingJames Murphy has been a teacher and senior leader in UK and NZ for over 30 years, and currently leads school partnerships at Thinking Reading. He has worked extensively in the behaviour and literacy fields. He has an MEd (Distinciton) from University of Canterbury, New Zealand and a MSTE from the University of Cambridge, England.
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Andrew Old
Teacher; BloggerAndrew Old is a teacher and blogger. His blog "Andrew Old's Education Battleground" can be found on Substack.
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Filio Constantinou
Senior Researcher, Cambridge University Press & AssessmentFilio Constantinou is a senior researcher at Cambridge University Press and Assessment. Her research spans the fields of assessment, curriculum and pedagogy. Matthew Carroll: His research focuses on statistical analysis of assessment data, and development and evaluation of novel computational methods. Since joining Cambridge University Press and Assessment in 2017, he has worked on diverse areas including detection of copying, uses of automated text analysis, comparing national and international test results, understanding demographic profiles of students taking vocational qualifications, the effects of tiering on grade distributions, and uses of longitudinal datasets. I also work closely with Cambridge CEM on a range of research projects relating to their tests. His background is in analysis of large datasets and statistical modelling, having previously worked in the field of conservation ecology. He studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge, then studied for an MRes and PhD at the University of York. After this, he worked as a research scientist, studying the impacts of climate change on animal populations. He has also worked in a science education centre, giving public talks and running practical science classes with school groups.
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Lauren Oates
Fellow of Initial Teacher Training, Ambition InstituteLauren is an experienced teacher educator, instructional coach, mentor and secondary science teacher. Lauren currently works as a Fellow of Initial Teacher Training at Ambition Institute.
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Sufian Sadiq
Director of Teaching School, Chiltern Learning TrustSufian Sadiq is the Director of Teaching School at Chiltern Learning Trust, with responsibility for overseeing two regional Hub areas in the South East of England. Chiltern Teaching School are one of the largest providers of CPD to the sector nationally. He is a passionate activist within the educational landscape around race, equity, and inclusion. He is a Fellow and Board Member of the Chartered College of Teaching, as well as a Fellow for the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors. He plays an active role in numerous charitable organisations as a Trustee and also holds key governance roles within educational organisations.
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