Charlotte O’Regan is the Schools Engagement Lead at The Sutton Trust, where she drives the Trust’s cross-sector strategy to promote social mobility and fairer school admissions. A former Vice Principal with over 15 years of experience in the education sector, Charlotte holds a Masters in Educational Leadership and the NPQH. She is a specialist in the intersectionality of disadvantage, particularly the complex relationship between socio-economic background and SEND. By bridging the gap between frontline school leadership and national advocacy, Charlotte ensures that policy recommendations, such as the Fair School Admissions Pledge, are both ambitious and grounded in the realities of school implementation.

Policy Specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) leading on Disadvantage, Data, Primary and Early Years and Literacy.  Tiffnie has over 25 years of school leadership experience. She is an expert in understanding data, and passionate about how this can support school improvement and outcomes for all children and young people, particularly for those that have an educational disadvantage.

A significant part of her Tiffnie’s is working with government on education policy and guidance, and she is one of the lead specialists on ASCL Council, where positions on policy are debated and used in discussion with government to steer policy.

Outside of her ASCL role, Tiffnie has a wealth of experience as a school governor and is the Chair of Governors at a secondary school.

Kate is the Regional Delivery Lead for the North of England at the EEF. She supports the mobilisation of research evidence through communication, local partnerships, and bespoke projects.

Kate works closely with the Research School Network and regional system leaders to support the mobilisation of research evidence in schools to improve learning and teaching, especially for children and young people facing socio-economic disadvantage.

Kate has worked in the education sector for more than 15 years in the UK and overseas as a Teacher, Headteacher, Leadership Development Coach and Teaching and Learning Consultant. Before joining the EEF, Kate lived in Montserrat in the Caribbean for two years during which time she worked as a consultant to the Ministry of Education advising on assessment, standards and national education reform. Prior to working in the education sector, she worked as a litigation solicitor.

Kate also sits as a Specialist Member of the First Tier Tribunal for SEND.

Gill is the Director of Lancashire Research School, working in partnership with the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF). In this role, she works strategically with system leaders, schools, and middle-tier organisations to support the implementation of evidence-informed approaches that drive sustainable improvement and long-lasting impact across the education sector.

Alongside this role, Gill is Deputy Headteacher at St Mary’s Primary School in Haslingden. She leads key areas including Curriculum, Teaching and Learning, Assessment, Pupil Premium, and Professional Development. With extensive experience in school leadership and school improvement, Gill is passionate about translating educational research into effective classroom practice and supporting educators to achieve the best possible outcomes for all pupils.

Jane is a Deputy Headteacher and has had a number of secondary phase senior and middle leader roles in her career. She has over 25 years of teaching and leadership experience and currently leads on supporting families impacted by socio-economic disadvantage in her school community. Alongside her Deputy role, Jane has led Huntington Research School since 2018, championing the use of research evidence to improve teaching and learning, with a focus on socio-economically disadvantaged children and young people.

Jenn Sills, Deputy Director Gloucestershire Research School and Trust Social Justice Lead at GLA Trust. She has 20 years’ experience in education, working across a range of key stages and leadership roles within Gloucestershire, Bristol and Worcestershire.

Charlotte O’Regan is the Schools Engagement Lead at The Sutton Trust, where she drives the Trust’s cross-sector strategy to promote social mobility and fairer school admissions. A former Vice Principal with over 15 years of experience in the education sector, Charlotte holds a Masters in Educational Leadership and the NPQH. She is a specialist in the intersectionality of disadvantage, particularly the complex relationship between socio-economic background and SEND. By bridging the gap between frontline school leadership and national advocacy, Charlotte ensures that policy recommendations, such as the Fair School Admissions Pledge, are both ambitious and grounded in the realities of school implementation.

Lisa Morphet is Director for Pupil Premium at The Mercian Trust, working across twelve diverse schools in the Black Country, one of the most disadvantaged regions in the country. A Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching and NPQ facilitator, Lisa has nearly 20 years’ experience in senior leadership across secondary and post 16 education.

Throughout her career, Lisa has led strategic work across pupil premium, safeguarding, literacy, teaching and learning, curriculum design and sixth form provision. She successfully developed and significantly expanded a large sixth form, improving both student outcomes and participation, and has also held strategic responsibility as a Designated Safeguarding Lead in a large secondary school.

Lisa now leads trust wide work on equity and inclusion, building collective expertise, fostering cross school collaboration and embedding disadvantaged strategy into all aspects of leadership. As part of the Trust’s School Improvement Directorate, she works across schools to support improvement, strengthen inclusive practice and ensure equity remains central to strategic decision making.

Lisa values opportunities to contribute to national conversations around equity and disadvantage, recognising the importance of creating space for leaders to reflect, collaborate and learn from one another’s experiences. Having worked extensively within schools and now across schools in a strategic role, she is passionate about sharing practice and supporting system wide improvement through collaboration and collective responsibility.

Chris is the Director of School North East.  He has been part of the Schools North East team since its operational inception in 2008 and in 2019 he was appointed Director.  Chris works with senior leaders across the North East and nationally in the education and charity sectors, to represent the voice of North East schools.  A central part of his work is to lobby politicians,  policy makers, and the media to put a strong ‘regional accent’ on the education debate, so that North East schools are not left behind when it comes to education policy.

Under Chris, Schools North East launched the ‘Manifesto for North East Education’.  The manifesto sets out the perennial challenges that impact educational opportunities in the North East and the principles needed to inform any educational policy wanting to address them.

Chris works with hundreds of schools across the North East and various organisations including Ofsted, the DfE, the North East’s universities, Local Authorities and various regional/national businesses. Prior to joining Schools North East, he led a £1.4 million culture change project in education across the North East for the Treasury and DfE and was responsible for setting up a multi-million pound Enterprise Education Network.

Chris sits on various advisory boards including the NHS Integrated Care Boards, various Combined Authority advisory boards, and was a member of the DfE’s Opportunity North East strategic board. He has also sat on various boards for North East Universities. As well as being a Director of two North East multi academy trusts, Chris has been Chair of a 3 school Trust, Vice Chair of a large maintained secondary school and Vice Chair of a primary foundation school.

In a variety of roles from Regional Manager to Chief Executive to Board member, Chris has led large scale change management projects in education and has over 20 years’ experience of strategic management, consultancy, and client development experience at a ‘Big Four’ firm and various financial institutions.

Chris holds an MBA with distinction from Durham University Business School.

Kate is the Regional Delivery Lead for the North of England at the EEF. She supports the mobilisation of research evidence through communication, local partnerships, and bespoke projects.

Kate works closely with the Research School Network and regional system leaders to support the mobilisation of research evidence in schools to improve learning and teaching, especially for children and young people facing socio-economic disadvantage.

Kate has worked in the education sector for more than 15 years in the UK and overseas as a Teacher, Headteacher, Leadership Development Coach and Teaching and Learning Consultant. Before joining the EEF, Kate lived in Montserrat in the Caribbean for two years during which time she worked as a consultant to the Ministry of Education advising on assessment, standards and national education reform. Prior to working in the education sector, she worked as a litigation solicitor.

Kate also sits as a Specialist Member of the First Tier Tribunal for SEND.

Anne-Marie Canning MBE is from Doncaster, was the first in her family to go to university and has dedicated her career to opening up educational opportunity to the next generation. She is now Opportunity Mission Challenge Director at UK Research and Innovation.

From 2020 to 2025 Anne-Marie was the Chief Executive Officer of The Brilliant Club, a UK-wide university access charity helping less advantaged students accessing the most competitive universities and supporting them to succeed when they get there. In 2018 she was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to higher education.

From 2017-2022 Anne-Marie was the independent chair of the Department for Education’s Bradford Opportunity Area. Opportunity Areas supported social mobility in the 12 areas of the country where it is most challenged. She now chairs a broad-based coalition of organisations in Bradford who are working together to improve opportunities for young people in the city – the Education Alliance for Life Chances. Between 2012 and 2019 Anne-Marie was the Director of Social Mobility and Student Success at King’s College London. In this role she founded an award-winning parental engagement endeavor called Parent Power which continues to this day.

Anne-Marie has previously worked at University College Oxford and holds a University of Oxford Teaching Award. She studied at the University of York and served a sabbatical term as the president of the students’ union.

Anne-Marie is a trustee of the Education Policy Institute, Child Poverty Action Group, and member of the advisory board of the Higher Education Policy Institute.

Sarah has been the Headteacher of the West Sussex Virtual School since 2017, following over 20 years working in secondary schools across Surrey and West Sussex.

Beginning her career as a RE teacher, Sarah has held a range of leadership positions in schools including Headteacher of a 5-16 Pupil referral unit.

Since becoming a Virtual School Head, Sarah has led the team through considerable change and transformation in children’s services alongside the changing role and remit of the Virtual school.

Charlotte O’Regan is the Schools Engagement Lead at The Sutton Trust, where she drives the Trust’s cross-sector strategy to promote social mobility and fairer school admissions. A former Vice Principal with over 15 years of experience in the education sector, Charlotte holds a Masters in Educational Leadership and the NPQH. She is a specialist in the intersectionality of disadvantage, particularly the complex relationship between socio-economic background and SEND. By bridging the gap between frontline school leadership and national advocacy, Charlotte ensures that policy recommendations, such as the Fair School Admissions Pledge, are both ambitious and grounded in the realities of school implementation.