Curriculum and assessment review

Review of the existing national curriculum and statutory assessment system in England, to ensure they are fit for purpose and meeting the needs of children and young people.

Membership

Professor Becky Francis CBE (Chair)

Chair of the Independent Curriculum and Assessment Review.

Previous roles include:

Chief Executive Officer of the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) since 2019
Director of the UCL Institute of Education (IOE)
Professor of Education and Social Justice at King’s College London
Director of Education at the Royal Society of Arts
Standing Advisor to the Parliamentary Education Select Committee

Throughout her career Professor Becky Francis CBE has sought to maximise the impact of academic research by working closely with teachers and policymakers. She has spearheaded high-profile research programmes assessing the impact of major reforms in the English school system on educational inequalities and is sought out internationally and nationally as an advisor to Governments on education policy.

Becky’s academic expertise and extensive publications centre on social identities and educational achievement. Her policy research and analysis has focused particularly on school quality and structures in relation to social equality. Analysis of educational inequalities and their causes, and means for their remediation, has been the consistent focus of her career, culminating in her leadership of the EEF whose mission is to use research evidence to challenge the socioeconomic gap for educational attainment.

Gary Aubin

Gary Aubin is a highly experienced Specialist Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) consultant with a background as a practising SENDCO who led on SEND provision for a Multi Academy Trust until December 2023.

Gary authors the SENDMatters.co.uk blog and has authored ‘The Lone SENDCO’, a handbook for SENDCOs.

Gary is an Associate of the Education Endowment Foundation. In this role, he supports schools to be evidenced-informed in their practice for students with SEND. He also leads a national SEND Leadership network, focusing on SEND school improvement, with Whole Education.

Gary has a masters in Special and Inclusive Education from the Institute of Education.

Professor Jo-Anne Baird

Professor Jo-Anne Baird is the Director of the Oxford University Centre for Educational Assessment.

Jo-Anne was formerly the Head of Oxford University’s Department of Education for six years, and held academic posts at the Institute of Education, University of London and the University of Bristol before that. She has also worked as head of research for the AQA exam board.

Jo-Anne has been:

Standing Adviser to the House of Commons Education Select Committee
a member of Ofqual’s Standing Advisory Group on Standards
Chair of the National Reference Test Expert Group
a member of the Welsh Government’s Curriculum and Assessment Group

Her research is on systems-level aspects of assessment, especially on standards.

Sir Ian Bauckham CBE (Observer)

Sir Ian Bauckham CBE took over the role of interim Chief Regulator at Ofqual in January 2024. Before that he had served as Chair of the Board of Ofqual from January 2021 and had been a Board member from March 2018. Before becoming Chief Regulator, Sir Ian led Tenax Schools Trust.

Sir Ian is Chair of Oak National Academy, an arm’s length body of the DfE.

Sir Ian also chaired the Market Review of Initial Teacher Training between 2020 and 2021, chaired the Modern Foreign Languages Review, and the Modern Foreign Languages GCSE Content Review.

Sir Ian will be an observer on the Review Panel.

Nic Beech

Nic Beech is the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Salford and was previously Vice-Principal at the University of St Andrews, Provost of Dundee University and Vice-Chancellor of Middlesex University. He is Chair of the Quality Council for UK Higher Education, a Commissioner on the International Higher Education Commission and Treasurer and on the Board of Universities UK. He was previously Treasurer and on the Board of the Academy of Social Sciences and Chair of Access HE.

Nic’s academic field is business and management and his research focused on identity, change and educational leadership. His awards from learned societies include, at a national level, the Lifetime Achievement in Research Award and at an international level, the Exceptional Service to the Field of Management Worldwide Award. He was the longest-serving president of the British Academy of Management.

Cassie Buchanan OBE

Cassie Buchanan OBE is CEO of the Charter Schools Education Trust in South-East London, with a mix of primary and secondary schools that are rated outstanding or good by Ofsted. The trust is particularly focused on being evidence based and inclusive.

Cassie sits on the Oak National Academy board providing expertise on curriculum development. Cassie has represented schools on DfE advisory committees, including those linked to Early Years, teacher wellbeing and workload reduction.

She is also a National Leader of Education.

Professor Zongyi Deng

Professor Zongyi Deng is a Professor of Curriculum and Pedagogy at IOE – Faculty of Education and Society, University College London. He is also a leader of the Curriculum Subject Specialism Research Group (CSSRG).

Zongyi has served as an international adviser and consultant for several projects and research centres in China, Hong Kong, UK, Canada, Sweden, and Denmark.

He is an executive editor of the Journal of Curriculum Studies (JCS) and has held faculty positions at Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) and the University of Hong Kong. He has also taught in the US and China.

Zongyi’s interest areas include curriculum content or subject matter, curriculum theory, didactics (Didaktik), curriculum policy and reform, and comparative and international education.

Jon Hutchinson

Jon Hutchinson is Director of Curriculum and Teacher Development at the Reach Foundation. Since 2022 he has held an international Fellowship with New America on the Learning Sciences Exchange.

Prior to this, he was a primary school teacher, A Level religious studies teacher and assistant headteacher at Reach Academy Feltham, an all-through school in London. Alongside teaching, Jon was also a Visiting Fellow at Ambition Institute, where he tutored on the Masters in Expert Teaching Programme. Over the last decade Jon has also regularly acted as an expert advisor to the Department for Education, including as a member of the core group which developed the Early Career Framework.

During the pandemic Jon was part of the team that set up Oak National Academy and led the primary humanities curriculum for the first year.

John Laramy CBE

John Laramy CBE is the Principal and Chief Executive of Exeter College, rated outstanding by Ofsted. The college is notable for its provision for all students across academic, vocational and technical provision, giving John a holistic understanding of the full range of pathways through post-16 education and the needs of students, regardless of their starting point or background.

John was a Founding Director of the Ted Wragg Multi-Academy Trust and was the Founding Chair of the Exeter Specialist Mathematics School - he remains involved as a member of both organisations. John served a full-term as a Director of the Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership and was, until recently, a non-executive Director of Pearson Education Limited. As a volunteer John is Chair of the Tertiary Colleges Group and a member of the Education Training Foundation Steering Group for Leadership Development at the Oxford Saïd Business School. In 2022 he was appointed as one of eight National Leaders of Further Education.

Dr Vanessa Ogden CBE

Dr Vanessa Ogden CBE is currently CEO of the Mulberry Schools Trust and former headteacher of the Mulberry School for Girls. The trust has a mix of primary and secondary schools that are all outstanding or good rated by Ofsted in Tower Hamlets and East London. Its vision is to deliver outstanding achievement for all so that students leave as highly qualified, confident and articulate young people with a wealth of experience, creativity, leadership and a life-long love of learning.

Vanessa is an honorary Academic at the UCL Institute of Education and has a doctorate specialising in education policy and school improvement. She is chair of the Fair Education Alliance and of the Unicorn Theatre and founded Global Girl Leading. Vanessa is a member of the DfE London regional board and was a member of the Commission on Religious Education, which reported in 2018.

Vanessa is a National Leader of Education and has undertaken a range of school turnaround work.

Lisa O’Loughlin

Lisa O’Loughlin has had a 30-year career working in large further education colleges and is currently the Principal and CEO of the Nelson and Colne College Group, which formed in 2018 following the successful mergers between Nelson and Colne College, Lancashire Adult Learning and Accrington and Rossendale College.

Lisa was previously the Principal of The Manchester College, where she guided the college to deliver an award-winning curriculum strategy, to meet the needs of the local community through an ethos of ‘careers not courses’, with excellent employer partnerships. This won the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for contributions to Further Education in 2021. For 6 of the years Lisa spent in Greater Manchester she chaired the Greater Manchester College Group, working collaboratively with the 9 further education colleges in the region and the Combined Authority to develop a collaborative 16-18 curriculum strategy for Greater Manchester.

Funmilola Stewart

Funmilola Stewart is the Trust Leader for Anti-Racism and Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion across Dixons MAT. She leads the Anti-Racism Cross Cutting Team at Dixons, as well as supporting trust-wide curriculum teams in developing an equitable curriculum. Funmilola is a teacher of history at Dixons Trinity Academy in Bradford.

Funmi has written and spoken widely on anti-racism, working with CST, the Imperial War Museum and Citizens UK.

Terms of reference