Katie Ivens
education director, Real Action; vice chairman, Campaign for Real Education

A former journalist and editor, Katie’s perspective changed when her sons went to primary school. She became a parent governor, and helped pupils who were poor readers. She became vice-chair of the Campaign for Real Education, a Westminster Councillor, and a governor of a notorious secondary school. She got involved in a regeneration programme: Estate Action on the Mozart Estate, then known as ‘Crack City’, where the child gang members were found to be illiterate. She helped set up the Butterfly Summer Reading School on the Mozart Estate in 1995, then helped form the Mozart community-led educational charity, Real Action. She has been engaged in forming and running Butterfly Saturday reading schools since 1999, and in-school interventions for literacy-needy children since 2012. Katie’s educational advocacy continues as the CRE’s vice chairman, as does her educational activism as Real Action’s education director. She is an Associate of the Academy of Ideas and member of the IoI Education Forum. She is also Visiting Research Fellow of the University of Derby Centre for Educational Research. Her educational motto is: “Just teach them. They’ll learn.”

RELATED SESSIONS

Tuesday 18 October, 19.00 Hallmark Midland Hotel, Derby
Knowledge versus skills: the great education debate 2016