Mapping the Way to a More Equitable Future for Education - Launch

Mapping the Way to a More Equitable Future for Education – Launch event Pin board with colourful pins and string
Date: 21 Oct 2021 Venue: Online
Time: 12:30 - 13:30
Type: Thought leadership webinar Fee: Free of charge

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Advancing equity in education is a major priority for policy makers and practitioners, both in the UK and internationally. It also sits at the heart of Cambridge Assessment Network’s mission to bring high-quality assessment dialogue and practice to the sector.

Loic Menzies, former Chief Executive of The Centre for Education and Youth, and co-editor of Young People on the Margins, who has recently joined the Assessment Network as Associate Education Specialist, will be convening a series of seminars and round tables on the topic of equity in education.

Inviting key voices in the education sector, he will explore themes in relation to how better information - assessment data and beyond - might help policy makers and practitioners steer towards greater educational equity.  

At this launch event, Loic will introduce some of the issues being explored over the course of the series. He will be joined by Dr Simon Child, Head of Assessment Training and Brooke Wyatt, Senior Assessment Training Manager at Cambridge Assessment Network, who will help shape the discussion and set out some of the ways better use of assessment might help in mapping the way towards a more equitable future.

Audience members will also be invited to ask questions and put forward their ideas on what should be covered over the series.

Some of the questions to be explored in the series include:

  • How can teachers and other practitioners make nuanced use of a range of information to identify and understand pupils’ underlying needs?
  • How can teachers and practitioners with different responsibilities and different expertise share information about young people’s needs, strengths and circumstances to ensure no-one falls through the gaps, for example when transitioning between phases?
  • How can young people’s achievements and attainment be understood in ways that are less vulnerable to distortion by circumstances and events?
  • How can policy makers develop a better understanding of the pupil population and its needs?
  • How can policy makers best use data and evidence to inform equity-promoting policies?

Our speakers

Loic Menzies - Speaker

Loic Menzies is a researcher and policy specialist with twenty years' experience in the education and youth sector.  He has authored numerous high-profile reports on issues ranging from youth homelessness to teacher recruitment and is editor of "Young People on the Margins: Priorities for action in education and youth" which was published by Routledge in Spring 2021.

Loic was previously Chief Executive of the think and action tank The Centre for Education and Youth and is a former teacher, youth worker and tutor for Canterbury Christ Church University's Faculty of Education. He has also been a school governor and a trustee of a number of youth and social entrepreneurship charities.

He is currently researching and writing his second book 'How Education and Youth Policy Happens' for Routledge and is an Associate Education Specialist for Cambridge Assessment Network; National Director for the Foundation for Education Development; and a Visiting Fellow at the Sheffield Institute of Education.

Simon Child - Speaker

Dr Simon Child joined Cambridge Assessment in 2012 as a Research Officer in Assessment Research and Development (ARD) after completing a PhD on the topic of pre-school children’s symbolic communication, specifically their use of gestures.

He subsequently worked as a Senior Researcher in Technical Standards at OCR and as Principal Research Officer within the Qualifications Development team in ARD.

He has been Head of Assessment Training at Cambridge Assessment Network since 2018, expanding the training provision on the principles and practice of assessment and Co- Directing a course with the Faculty of Education, the Postgraduate Certificate in Educational Assessment.

He has just published his first book, The What, Why and How of Assessment which offers an accessible  introduction to the purposes, principles and practices of assessment.

Brooke Wyatt - Speaker

Brooke Wyatt is a former science teacher of 15 years, working up to Head of Department. She joined Cambridge Assessment in 2016 taking a role as Assessment Manager at Cambridge International, managing the primary and lower secondary science assessments and working on a range of education reform projects.

She joined Cambridge Assessment Network in November 2020, having found it to be the perfect opportunity to combine her teaching experience with her assessment expertise. Brooke also volunteers as a governor at a local school which keeps her in touch with the issues faced by schools and teachers in the UK.