Sarah has been working since January 2021  as Co-Headteacher of School 360, a brand new primary school which opened in September 2021 and is part of the Big Education Trust.  Trust schools offer a more expansive view of education, focusing on both head (academic learning), heart (wellbeing and relationships) and hand (skills across a range of fields), with a particular focus on social justice in and with the community.  Big Education offers school improvement support through its Big Team Adventure programme and a range of professional development programmes for school leaders across the UK, including the Big Leadership Adventure (BLA).  Sarah works for the Trust on impact evaluation, research, school improvement and professional development.  Since she joined the Trust, she has been working on impact evaluation tools and reporting for the BLA and producing a research summary for school leaders that offers a range of supporting literature around the theoretical underpinnings and research evidence supporting the BLA’s approach.

Sarah Seleznyov is a part-time PhD student at LEARN! research institute, VU University Amsterdam and her thesis focuses on the implementation of professional development in schools.  She graduated with a distinction at Master’s level from UCL Institute of Education.  Her expertise is in qualitative research methods.

Sarah was formerly Director of the London South Teaching School Alliance, an alliance of schools across south London, working collaboratively to improve teacher and pupil learning.  She led school improvement, professional development, research projects and impact evaluations for 43 member schools and others across the UK.  The teaching school was designated as an EEF Research School, one of only 30 in the UK, and became a Teaching School Hub in 2021.. In this role she led several large scale funded professional development and research projects for schools including projects on supporting children with autism, improving diversity in school leadership, and using drama to raise attainment for deprived primary pupils. 

Gill Featherstone  is an independent researcher with 20 years of experience in research, survey design and evaluations in the areas of education, skills, employability, youth, health and social care. As a Research Manager at the National Foundation for Educational Research Gill undertook large scale evaluations for clients such as the Department for Education, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Local Government Association.  She now works as an independent research consultant and is currently working with Kantar Public on the COVID social mobility and opportunities study and with NatCen supporting charities who provide NEET training and engagement programmes to develop their approach to evaluation. Gill has also worked with Oldham Opportunity Area to support their use of local, regional and national data to measure progress in relation to their social mobility goals. 

Gill has extensive experience of designing and delivering evaluations and is an experienced interviewer and focus group facilitator. She is proficient in the use of SPSS for quantitative data analysis and Maxqda for qualitative data analysis.