Andrew Pollard was brought up in Devon and has a family background in printing and in farming. He received his BA in Sociology and Economics from the University of Leeds, PGCE in Education from the University of Lancaster, MEd and PhD, in the Sociology of Education, from the University of Sheffield.

He taught though the 1970s, was a teacher educator in the 1980s, a researcher in the 1990s, a research programme director in the 2000s, and semi-retired in the 2010s.

As a former school teacher, Pollard’s research interests focused on teaching-learning processes and learner experiences, and on the development of evidence-informed classroom practice. His first book, The Social World of the Primary School, analysed teacher-pupil relationships and was published in 1985. His work on classroom practice led to the establishment of a popular text-book, Reflective Teaching, which has evolved though a dozen versions since 1987 and has been used by many thousands of trainee teachers over the years.