Our Team

Founder

Fiona Forbes

Fiona is the Founder of the Parent Voice Project and has a longstanding interest in Education and Social Mobility in the UK. She is a Trustee at the Sutton Trust, sits on the Board of Ark Schools and is a local governor at Ark Putney Academy. During the pandemic, Fiona launched the ‘September for Schools’ campaign, calling for home-schooling to be improved and for a return to schools to be a government priority.

Fiona started her career in marketing at Unilever before setting up Off the Fence Marketing, a boutique consultancy specialising in Brand Strategy and Communication. She attended state schools in Warrington and read Modern Languages at Durham University.

Expert Advisory Group

The Parent Voice Project is supported by an Advisory Group with deep knowledge across the education sector.

Sir Steve Taylor – CEO, Cabot Learning Federation

Steve became a teacher of MFL in 1995, a headteacher in 2001 in the Netherlands, and again in Bristol in 2009.

For over 11 years, Steve has been the CEO of Cabot Learning Federation (CLF), a trust serving 18,000 learners aged 2 to 19 across more than 36 entities in five counties in the South West. The CLF founded the Five Counties Teaching School Hubs Alliance, and its CLF Institute runs a SCITT, a Maths Hub, a RISE Reception Networks Lead School, and an Attendance and Behaviour Hub.

Steve and his colleagues at CLF lead and participate in local, regional and national networks designed to support the broader development of the education sector for the benefit of all children, including RISE advisory roles. Steve is Chair of The Queen Street Group, was a NLE, is a Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching, and an Inspector for Ofsted. He was awarded the degree of Doctor of Education honoris causa by UWE Bristol in 2024 and became a Knight Bachelor in the 2026 New Year’s Honours.

Steve Mills – Former Headteacher, Whitehill Junior School

Steve has just taken early retirement from his position as a Headteacher at Whitehill Junior School in Hitchin, having worked in education since the mid-1990s.

In 2009 Steve was awarded UK Teacher of the Year in a Primary School in annual Teaching Awards.

More recently, he has sat on various groups within the NAHT, including their National Executive, representing the views of Hertfordshire headteachers at local, regional and national level.

Although Steve is no longer working in schools, he has agreed to support Education and Sporting Futures deliver training to teaching assistants through the apprenticeship route, and to serve on the Parent Voice Project expert advisory group.

Anne-Marie Canning MBE – Opportunity Mission Challenge Director at UKRI

Anne-Marie Canning MBE is currently Opportunity Mission Challenge Director at UKRI, working to improve outcomes for people and places across the UK by identifying solutions that promote economic and social prosperity. She was previously the Chief Executive Officer of the Brilliant Club, a UK-wide university access charity focused on increasing the number of 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.

In recent years, Anne-Marie was the independent chair of the Department for Education’s Bradford Opportunity Area. She now leads 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. Anne-Marie has previously worked at University College Oxford and holds a University of Oxford Teaching Award. Anne-Marie is also a trustee of the Child Poverty Action Group.

Parent Steering Committee

The Project is also supported by a Parent Steering Committee, which includes twelve parents from different backgrounds. The Committee contributed to the design of the research, survey questions and early findings.

Research Team

The Parent Voice Project is delivered with the policy, research and strategy consultancy Public First.

Public First is a consultancy that sits at the intersection of policy, communications and research. We exist to help organisations solve some of society’s hardest problems – and to do so in ways that cut through in public debate and change how government acts.

Public First understand how change really happens. The team has worked inside government, with foundations, charities and campaign groups, and with schools, universities and business – but our work is always grounded in the views of real people in real communities. To do so we test public opinion in all its forms, synthesise research and existing knowledge and turn the insight into actionable policy. Public First is part of SHGH, which holds the companies Public First, Stonehaven and Robertsbridge.

Public First is a Company Partner of the Market Research Society and members of the British Polling Council.