Lesley Saunders

poet and educationalist

educational research

I have worked all my life in education, as teacher, researcher, policy adviser and independent consultant. I am an experienced evaluator, writer and presenter. I have an international profile in educational research and evaluation; I currently hold a Visiting Professorship at the Institute of Education, London, and a Fellowship at Oxford University Department of Education.  Download my summary CV here

affiliations

• Visiting Professor, Faculty of Policy and Society, Institute of Education, London
• Honorary Research Fellow, Department of Education, University of Oxford
• Associate member, Leadership for Learning Network, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge
• Honorary Fellow, College of Teachers
• Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts

recent posts

• Senior Policy Adviser for Research, General Teaching Council for England (GTC), 2000 – 2008
• Principal Research Officer, National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) and Head of the NFER’s School Improvement Research Centre, 1987 – 2000

research expertise and interests

• evaluations of national and local educational initiatives and funded programmes - for example, over the last few years I have been commissioned to undertake evaluations of the inclusive education projects managed by Save the Children in Kosovo.  It is a real privilege to visit the schools and talk to the children, their teachers and parents, education officials and members of the community, and to see how the country is trying to create a better and more peaceful future through the education of its youngest citizens - contact me for more details
• support for early career researchers
- including a suite of resources on Commissioning and Consuming Research, available on the BERA website (search in BERA on-line resource, commissioning and consuming research)
• teachers’ professionalism; professional learning and development; the deeper conceptualisation of teaching as a research-informed profession with a particular focus on pedagogy
- see, for example, BERA on-line resource, teachers’ engagement with research
• research-informed policy-making in education
- see, for example, BERA on-line resource, research for policy audiences
• the collection, interpretation and use of different kinds of data for school self-evaluation and school development; in particular, constructing and understanding statistical ‘value added’ measures of performance
• national programme evaluations, using a variety of approaches; international perspectives on ‘school improvement’ and ‘teacher effectiveness’, including work for British Council and a placement at the World Bank
• uses of creativity and the imagination in research

Please contact me at if you would like to explore possible commissions or collaborations

key roles

• Founder of the special interest group on educational research and education policy-making, British Educational Research Association (BERA)
• Founder member of the National Educational Research Forum (NERF)
• School governor, 1989 – 1999
• Member of the Education sub-panel for the UK Research Assessment Exercise 2008

publications

Over fifty sole-authored papers, book chapters and reports written for a wide variety of audiences and clients (plus a similar number of co-authored papers). For example:

• Developing and Sustaining Models of Inclusive Education in Kindergartens and Primary Schools in Kosovo/a. Independent Evaluation Report (2009). Unpublished report (available on request)
• Educational Research and Policy-Making: Exploring the Border Country Between Research and Policy (editor). London:  Routledge. (2007)
• ‘Teachers’ engagement in and with research: supporting integrity and creativity in teaching’, Forum, 48, 2, 131–44. (2006)
• ‘Grounding the Democratic Imagination:  Developing the Relationship between Research and Policy in Education’. (Professorial Lecture 2004)
• ‘On flying, writing poetry and doing educational research.’ British Educational Research Journal, 29, 2, 175–187. (2003)
• Value Added Measurement of School Effectiveness: a Critical Review.  Slough: NFER. (1999)
• ‘Who or what is school “self”-evaluation for?’ School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 10, 4, 414-29. (1999)

qualifications

MA in classics (University of Cambridge)

Postgraduate certificate of education (University of Oxford), with Distinction

DPhil (University of Oxford)