Roy Jobson is moving from one big city to another. Manchester’s chief education officer will leave his post in about six months’ time to become director of education for Edinburgh. He will be filling the vacancy left by “woman of steel” Liz Reid, who has already left Scotland to take charge of education in the London borough of Hackney.
Mr Jobson first came to Manchester in 1985 as senior assistant education officer (schools) and became chief education officer in 1988. He has agreed to stay with the authority for six months so that he can finish work on proposals to reorganise the city’s schools to raise standards and remove surplus places.
The Secondary Heads Association has a new deputy general secretary: Russell Clarke, who is currently assistant general secretary. He succeeds Kay Driver, who is leaving to take up her new appointment as general secretary of the Professional Association of Teachers.
Mr Clarke, who joined SHA seven years ago after a career in further education, has been most active in the field of legal support for members and was the prime mover in the development of the association’s “hotline” service. He has also been responsible for pay and conditions and superannuation.
Dominique Wright (pictured) has been appointed early years development officer of the metropolitan borough of Wigan. She will be responsible for putting into effect Wigan’s early years development plan which was recently approved by the Department for Education and Employment.
Ms Wright has spent most of her working life as head of children’s play and recreation at the old Cardiff City Council and has most recently been a member of the community development team at Crewe and Nantwich council in Cheshire. A keen mountain biker, she is glad to be leaving the flat Cheshire plain for Wigan where, as she says, “there are a few more hills to go at”.
Michael Stark has left the Standards and Effectiveness Unit at the Department for Education and Employment to take up a secondment until the end of July as deputy director of education in Staffordshire, working to CEO Philip Hunter. He has taken the seat of David Goddard, who joins the SEU as an Education Action Zone adviser for the same period - part of the DFEE’s programme of sharing staff and expertise with local government. Sheila Scales, returning from secondment to Surrey County Council, has succeeded Mr Stark as head of the department’s effectiveness division.
One of England’s most distinguished heads has become visiting professor of education law at the Edith Cowan University in Perth, Western Australia. Chris Lowe, who has been head of Prince William School at Oundle in Northamptonshire for 27 years, is spending two weeks lecturing to school principals and university students in Perth and will return for short periods over the next three years.
A graduate lawyer who has written extensively on education law, Mr Lowe has been legal secretary and president of the Secondary Heads Association and president of the European Secondary Heads Association. He is currently chairman of the International Business and Education Co-operation Trust (IBEC), which organises projects across the world.
“Western Australia is developing self-managed schools rapidly. We want to learn from the UK experience and there is no-one better qualified than Chris Lowe,” said Professor Bernard Harrison, dean of the faculty of education in Perth.
