My background, skills and experiences from my career in education, my role as co-convenor for BERA’s Inclusive Education Special Interest Group (SIG) and my time as a trustee of a national charity that I co-founded will make me a valuable addition to BERA council.

I have worked in HE for the past 9 years and currently teach at undergraduate, masters and doctoral level. Previously I led history departments at secondary schools in London and Nottingham before re-training as a Specialist Dyslexia Teacher. I
gained further project management skills running two lottery-funded educational projects at the charity Action Duchenne from 2008-2016, and my national literacy project with schools across the UK called ‘Include Duchenne’ won the National Lottery Award for Education in 2011.

I have been privileged to co-convene BERA’s Inclusive Education SIG for the past 6 years. This has enabled me to organise a range of different events with colleagues from other SIGs as well as practitioners and professionals from policy organisations and charities including those across the four nations (eg. Disabled Students; Council for Disabled Children). For example, I have successfully run events about: the role of the SENCO that included practitioners and parents; an event on Disability in HE
involving a student disability charity as well as academics; and an event around implementation of the SEND legislation which involved disabled young people in addition to the Policy Director from the Council for Disabled Children. I am proud to be a member of BERA and excited about how it has developed over the past few years to champion the role that education and educational research can play in people’s lives, and to further promote the need for inclusion and diversity.

Furthermore, the substantial growth in membership witnessed at annual conferences suggests (alongside the publication of its 2023 Annual Report) that BERA is reaching a wider audience including practitioners, providing relevant and exciting online and in person events as well as a host of funding opportunities.

Over the past six years I have helped to develop a supportive and dynamic network within our SIG through our regular webinars, forum meetings and newsletters, and I look forward to our annual conferences when I know members will celebrate presentations and achievements of other colleagues.

I am particularly excited about this year’s conference where we will be welcoming the World Educational Research Association (WERA) and celebrating BERA’s 50th anniversary, and hope that this will begin closer international partnerships between both organisations and its members.

I have had experience of being a trustee and understand the importance of strategic thinking as well as values such as honesty and integrity. In 2001, I co-founded the national charity Action Duchenne and was a trustee for several years, and from 2016 – 2023 I was a parent governor at a secondary school in Waltham Forest.

My own research is in the area of Disability and Special Educational Needs and I work
closely with several user-led charities and national organisations such as, Pathfinders Neuro-muscular Alliance, the Council for Disabled Children, Muscular Dystrophy UK and Duchenne UK where I lead the Education working group alongside other professionals from health and education as well as supporting both advocacy and policy initiatives. This has sometimes meant giving talks in Parliament, Stormont and the Scottish Parliament. Therefore my professional background in teaching, research, policy and organising research events would stand me in good stead for this role.