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.
Research Team (Public First)
The Parent Voice Project is delivered with the policy, research and strategy consultancy Public First.
SARAH ANDERSON – ANALYST, EDUCATION PRACTICE AT PUBLIC FIRST
Sarah is a Policy Analyst in the Education practice at Public First. She graduated from the University of Cambridge with a first-class degree in Classics and later served as Undergraduate President and Chair of the Board of Trustees at Cambridge SU. Her work focused on representing student views and communicating policy changes. Sarah also works on the Inquiry into White Working-Class Educational Outcomes.
DR. SALLY BURTONSHAW – DIRECTOR, EDUCATION PRACTICE AT PUBLIC FIRST
Sally is a Director in the Education Practice where she leads work on schools and post-18 education policy. Sally has led work on a range of topics at Public First including on the attendance crisis, a campaign on the future of state funded tutoring in schools and colleges, the Commission into Countering Online Conspiracies in Schools, and a review of the collaborative outreach programme, Uni Connect. Sally joined Public First from London Higher where she was Head of Policy. Sally started her career at Dyke House College in Hartlepool and worked on access and participation policy at fair access charity, The Brilliant Club. She completed her PhD at UCL on the relationships between schools and universities in supporting progression to higher education. Sally is a trustee of fair access charity, The Elephant Group and a member of the Independent Schools Inspectorate’s Education Advisory Forum.
KATIE CARR – ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, EDUCATION PRACTICE AT PUBLIC FIRST
Katie brings more than a decade of experience in education policy, strategy and decision-making. She spent 10 years at the Department for Education in a range of senior roles, including three years as Chief of Staff to the Schools Minister. During the pandemic, Katie worked in the Cabinet Office, briefing and running a Covid Cabinet Committee and leading efforts to resolve critical supply chain issues. At Public First, Katie has led high-profile projects across the education portfolio. Most recently, she directed a pioneering campaign in Sunderland that brought together employers, charities and schools to expand enrichment and employment opportunities for children on a deprived estate, and she authored a research project on young people’s perspectives on school attendance.
ED DORRELL – PARTNER, EDUCATION PRACTICE AT PUBLIC FIRST
Ed is a Partner at Public First. Before joining PF, he was one of the most experienced and respected education journalists in Britain. He was deputy editor of the Times Educational Supplement (TES) for seven years, a role he combined with being comment editor and before that he was news editor for five years. Ed has also written for most national papers including the Guardian, the Times, the Telegraph and the Independent. He is known for his sharp policy analysis and his wide-ranging network in the media, in education, in government and in the Labour party. He offers high-value counsel and insight on media affairs, public opinion and policy formulation to many of Public First’s major education clients including Cambridge University, the Sutton Trust, the International Baccalaureate and Eton College. He still writes regularly for the Independent, Schools Week and Labour List.
VIVIAN GOUNARI – QUALITATIVE ANALYST, PUBLIC OPINION AT PUBLIC FIRST
Vivian is a Qualitative Analyst in the Opinion Research team at Public First. She joined shortly after the completion of her MSc in Social Policy and Research Methods from UCL, as part of which she completed a qualitative community project on the impacts of digital exclusion for individuals experiencing homelessness and trained in mixed methods. Prior to her degree, she completed a Research and Evaluation internship at Good Things Foundation, conducting focus groups across the country with diverse demographics on digital literacy.
SEB WRIDE – PARTNER, PUBLIC OPINION AT PUBLIC FIRST
Seb Wride is a Partner at Public First, leading our Opinion Research team. Seb brought quantitative opinion research in-house at Public First, building from the ground up our systems for survey scripting, fieldwork and analysis techniques. Seb has run quantitative research projects spanning over 40 countries. His research focuses on using research methods to answer complex policy questions, leveraging experimental design and approaches to disaggregate stated and revealed preferences, or to understand the causal influence of policy information, question wording and messaging on attitudes. His work at Public First has has included research into young people’s views on a range of topics, from attitudes to online safety, to maths education, to the impact of AI and the climate. Prior to joining Public First, Seb completed an MPhil in Psychological research, and his work on the relationships between music preference and personality was published in JPSP in 2022.
Expert Advisory Group
The Parent Voice Project is supported by an Advisory Group with deep knowledge across the education sector.
Anne-Marie Canning, Director of Opportunity Mission Challenge at UKRI
James Turner, CEO of the Hg Foundation
Rebecca Cramer, CEO of Reach Schools
Steve Mills, Headteacher of Whitehill Junior School
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.