Following a highly successful teaching career in mainly challenging schools, Ian became the Headteacher of an inner-city secondary school. Whilst there, the school was twice recognized as one of the most improved specialist schools nationally and awarded a School Achievement Award for successive years of sustained improvement. From there he joined the advisory service as a Senior Adviser, during which time he also worked as a School Improvement Partner, National Challenge Adviser and became accredited as an Ofsted Inspector. He also qualified as a professional coach. He was appointed Director of School Improvement in the same LA with oversight for Primary, Secondary and Special Education. Ian was part of a LA that went from a satisfactory to an excellent rating in its Children’s Services provision.

Ian first became involved with the AoEA, as one of its founder members, when he was Director of Secondary Academies of a large multi-academy trust. As a member of the AoEA team, Ian was one of a number of colleagues interested in developing an internationally recognized accreditation process for advisers. More recently Ian has worked as an interim CEO of a Primary MAT and then as CEO of a Secondary MAT, whilst also undertaking some independent work as an adviser with a number of schools, MATs and Las. Working with the AoEA, Ian believes, has helped him to hone his own skills as an Adviser and those of many others now working as accredited associates.

As one of the AoEA Development Team, Ian is involved in the accreditation process, which involves the assessment of applications, professional discussions and the assessing and validation of portfolio evidence. Ian is also involved in developing training materials for advisory work at both an associate and senior associate level, which involves some delivery of remote and face to face professional development as well as the creation of an on-line, independent e-learning programme.