Buckinghamshire’s chief education officer, David McGahey, is the latest local authority offficial to join the private sector. He becomes a director of Amey Local Government Services, with a brief to develop its education business. The Amey group is managing a pound;1.2 billion programme of building and refurbishment in Glasgow’s secondary schools. It provides services to 500 other schools and colleges and will give pound;2 million to East Middlesbrough City Academy.
In a six-month pilot scheme, Mr McGahey’s former job will be split between three “general managers”: schools, children and young people, and community services.
The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority has appointed three new members to its board: Dennis Richard, head of St Aidan’s CE high, Harrogate; Ray Shostak, director of education for Hertfordshire; and Terry Morgan, director of operations for BAE Systems plc. Ian McAllister, chief executive of the Ford Motor Company Ltd, has been appointed deputy chairman in succession to Sir Dominic Cadbury, who is retiring.
Veronique Gerber has taken up her post as head of Hurlingham and Chelsea secondary in south-west London. For the past three years she has been deputy head of South Camden community school in noth London. Her appointment follows the departure of Michael Murphy who has become the pound;92,000-a-year head of Crown Woods school in Greenwich, the comprehensive recently removed from special measures following a successful High Court challenge.
Sir Peter Hall has been appointed director of the Institute of Community Studies at University College London, succeeding sociologist and writer Michael Young in September. Lord Young has been the institute’s director since 1954. Sir Peter, who has been professor of planning for the past nine years, will continue to teach at UCL’s Bartlett School and will also serve as chair of UCL’s Renaissance London urban regeneration centre.
John Geake, an expert on gifted children, has joined Westminster Institute of Education at Oxford Brookes University. He comes from the University of Melbourne and will be head of child development and learning. The institute’s research centre for able pupils has been contracted by the Government to devise training for those workng with gifted pupils in inner-city schools.
John Dishman has been appointed principal of Harrogate College, which he helped merge with Leeds Metropolitan University in 1999. He was previously deputy principal.
