I am standing to become a Council member of BERA, an organisation I joined 2006; a role I believe my personal and professional life experiences would enable me to carry out effectively and to make a significant contribution to the work of BERA.

My Background, Skills and Experience
I have worked in the education since 1986 including posts in primary, secondary, youth and community, advisory, Further Education and Higher Education in various roles including management. As a consequence of this broad experience, I have developed an in-depth understanding of the different and intersectional challenges facing each area which I could bring to Council.

Working in a range of sectors has enabled me to develop skills both in working independently and as part of a team. I have excellent communication and planning skills which enable me to establish goals, reach consensus and attain results. I was a Social Justice SIG convenor from 2015- 2023 and worked with colleagues from other SIGS to organise events held in HE venues in Nottingham and Manchester on Faith, Social Justice and Race. More recently the Social Justice SIG has hosted online sessions on autoethnography.

I regularly present at the annual conference on different aspects of equality in education including representation of minoritised groups in HE, inclusive education in Kenya, and the impact of homelessness on education. I have a broad, practical experience of education and understand the complexity of presenting intersectional issues.

As well being an abstract reviewer of conference papers, I continue to contribute to the BERA BLOG and was a previous Research Award winner. I know from first-hand experience how positive experience can act as a catalyst for change making immediate and long-term differences to people’s lives. As a Black woman who, by luck, escaped school bussing policies operating when I attended primary school in the 1960s, I am keenly aware of the damage education can cause. My understanding of educational equality is fuelled by a personal and professional passion to directly challenge social inequalities and to achieve change. In the past, the needs of different groups including women, minoritised ethnic communities and learners with additional needs have been poorly served.

Through my research and employment, I have constantly sought to bring issues of inequality to the fore of organizational consciousness and to work to improve existing practice. As an active researcher/writer I have sole or co-authored 27 published works including peer refereed journal articles, books and book chapters. All my work is based on primary research or professional experience and is written from an inclusive perspective emphasising individual and organisational responsibility. I use my writing to promote equity and to remove or reduce institutional barriers in education, goals. A recent work, Becoming a Successful School Leaderprovides practical guidance to new and current leaders to help them embed equality in the fabric of their education settings.

In my current role as Associate Professor for Access, Equality and Inclusion and Programme Leader for Education Doctorates at Bishop Grosseteste University, I re-established the Social Justice Research unit. Consistent with my belief in working with early career researchers to support them build their publications record, I have led colleagues to successfully secure a contract with Bloomsbury to produce a new collection entitled An Introduction to Social Justice in Education in the UK.

I would want to continue to build on this experience and lead writing/publication workshops under the BERA banner to help other colleagues raise their academic profiles in their settings and beyond and to use writing as a mechanism to surface issues and question accepted normalised practices.