Sean Cavan
Education Consultant and Emeritus Fellow, Sheffield Institute of Education
I have over 35 years experience of supporting educational improvement, in the UK and internationally, through consultancy, programme development, quality assurance and conference dissemination. I specialise in the fields of educational partnerships, educational quality assurance/ risk analysis and organisational / professional self-evaluation for school improvement.
I currently work with a number of bodies including the ITT Trailblazer Group, the Development Group for the Association of Education Advisors, the National Audit and Risk Chairs Forum, the Advisory Boards for several Teaching School Hubs and am a Non-Executive Director of Delta Academies Trust, a 51 school Trust, leading on workforce development strategies.
Although I am now an independent consultant, I have retained my long-standing relationship with the Sheffield Institute of Education having been appointed as an Emeritus Fellow after 40 years’ service. For the last 23 years I co-led the University’s engagement with major national education workforce projects and had extensive experience of consulting to HEIs, schools. Trusts and other educational settings on quality assurance, risk analysis and education partnerships.
I served for 13 years on the Executive Committee of the Universities’ Council for the Education of Teachers, including 7 years as Vice-Chair and Chair. In my UCET roles I worked with Government bodies on major initiatives including the development of Teaching Schools as a member of the NCSL/TDA TS Designation Team, the School Direct ITT model the national Master’s in Teaching and Learning, and Welsh Government Masters in Educational Practice.
I have also developed professional/academic accreditation programmes for the US Department of State and British Council Fulbright programmes, the Teacher Development Trust, The Brilliant Club, The National College for School Leadership and The National Science Learning Centre. I co-authored 3 successful Teaching Schools Hubs bids and recently supported redesignation applications for TSHs in Autumn 2023.