Our Team
Gill Scott – As Senior Education Consultant I work with senior leaders on strategic projects, drawing upon my extensive experience in the development of place-based approaches to education and skills and the development of high quality technical and higher technical education. Previously at GM Aimhigher then Greater Manchester Strategic Alliance(GMSA), I worked across colleges, universities, schools, employer networks and other stakeholders to develop employer led Foundation Degrees and led on a key project, GMSA Pathways, to create coherent progression routes for over 10,000 GM learners on vocational programmes. More recently as Director of Quality in a large FE provider, I led on Greater Manchester collaborative strategic projects, working with college leaders to help them to develop a Strategic Implementation Plan. To support collaborative development of higher technical education I initiated and convened Sector Development Groups, bringing together providers, employer networks, professional bodies and awarding organisations to shape and plan curriculum.
In my consultancy role I now lead our small expert team and I continue to work across the sector on strategic curriculum and quality education innovation projects.
Jon Rashid – With a background based in Computer Games and Children’s Television Jon moved into the educational arena more than 15yrs ago. He has spent that time embedding new technology into the pedagogical process. He has gained a vast amount of experience with mediums such as VR, AR, MR, Stereoscopic 3D and photogrammetry carrying out project based learning exercises with all levels of education. These have been with SEND and Primary through to Colleges, Universities and corporate training with JLR and Fujitsu. Now focused primarily on blended learning solutions that concentrate on learning outcomes and engagement, with budget, accessibility and stakeholder participation in mind.
Linda Edwards – Co-founder and Director with responsibilities for functional and financial management, I have a background of managing extensive multi stakeholder projects in the private and public sectors. This rich background has honed my skills in stakeholder relations, project and financial management.
My first career experience of project management was in a large Civil Service Department in the early 1990s, delivering a program of projects to improve the quality of customer service, and bring about organisational transformational change. From this I progressed to be involved in the management of rewarding and successful project work in the Education, Construction and Adult Social Care sectors. Delivering high-quality customer service is my passion, not forgetting my first project management lessons.
Claire Cullinan (nee Collins) – has supported further education and training projects for 25 years in the UK and Europe. Claire started her post-16 teaching career in the late 90s and moved into teacher education and wider development work. Her first national role was for the Skills for Life initiative, supporting colleges, prisons, training providers and local authorities to develop their adult literacies (English, maths and ‘ICT’) provision. Her work found her in many settings, from bus depots to universities, and she developed deep knowledge and expertise about adults’ literacy practices in work and life. Claire later lived in the Netherlands, supporting the Dutch Reading and Writing Foundation to design their national adult literacy programme, drawing on lessons learnt from her work in England. More recently, Claire has led national professional development and action research programmes including those with a focus on digital and online learning. During the challenges of the Covid pandemic, Claire worked to support the flow of learning between classroom and screen. For example, working on behalf GM colleges, she brought together subject experts in a ‘Communities of Practice’ model to identify, evaluate, develop and deploy digital/online approaches in each college. The project also worked at a strategic level to influence, inform and shape the mid to longer-term development of digital and blended learning strategies of colleges across the partnership.
Dr Roger Clark – With a grounding in research psychology, extensive experience of digital learning resource development and a long standing interest in artificial intelligence, I contribute to the consultancy in at various levels. My academic background includes a PhD in early language development and lecturing in psychology at HE and FE level. Later, as a software developer, I have designed and implemented applications tailored for educational use and have managed IT projects across HE and FE in Greater Manchester. My role in this team is to provide research expertise and to contribute to the educational design of the innovative digital resources we develop.
