Announcing CfEY’s new Head of Policy, Head of Engagement and Head of Research

The Centre for Education and Youth is pleased to announce the appointment of Baz Ramaiah as Head of Policy, Alix Robertson as Head of Engagement, and Bart Crisp and Head of Research. 

Baz Ramaiah joined the policy team at CfEY in 2020. He recently co-wrote The Fair Education Alliance’s 2022 Report Card and a forthcoming report with Ipsos Mori and Sheffield Hallam University on schools’ experiences of delivering education over the course of the pandemic. Baz also researched for and wrote CfEY’s influential ‘Levelling Up Tutoring‘ report on how to improve the National Tutoring Programme, and continues to lead on the centre’s work to influence in-school tutoring policy and practice.

Baz currently spends part of his week as head of policy at The Cultural Learning Alliance. He also runs a quarterly summit for policy professionals in the education and youth sector to exchange ideas and insights, and presents the Youth and Education Podcast series ‘The Life Pedagogic’. Baz appears regularly on broadcast media to discuss issues in education policy and has written on issues related to education, policy and data for The Financial Time, The Evening Standard, Schools Week, Teach Primary, Teach Secondary, Cambridge University Press, The Tribune and The Jacobin.

Prior to his time at CfEY, Baz spent five years teaching Religious Education and Psychology in inner-city schools in East London and Manchester, before becoming lead researcher at Teacher Tapp, the UK’s biggest daily survey of teachers.

Get in touch with Baz at [email protected] or on Twitter @Barristotle

Alix Robertson joined the engagement team at CfEY in 2018. She has carried out research on topics including primary assessment, special educational needs and disabilities, barriers to accessing UK higher education, post-16 transitions, tutoring, and supporting student mental health. Alix has conducted several evaluations and delivered evaluation training to a range of organisations including The Mercers’ Company, Action Tutoring, Career Ready, the Commercial Education Trust, Brentford FCCST and Bore Place. She has also provided communications support for organisations such as Oxford University Press and the National Citizen Service, as well as running and speaking at a variety of online and in person events, including the Festival of Education and the Schools and Academies Show. Alix has a special interest in mental health and authored a chapter on the subject for CfEY’s book, Young People on the Margins. She coordinates CfEY’s Youth and Education Podcast.

Alix started out as an English teacher at a secondary school, where she ran a student magazine and mentored vulnerable pupils. A desire to interrogate challenges in the education system led her to go on to take an MA in journalism at City University. She then worked for sister papers FE Week and Schools Week, winning awards for her investigations and reporting on a wide range of subjects including college finances, multi-academy trusts, and the experiences of women and the LGBT community in education.

Get in touch with Alix at [email protected] or on Twitter @AlixHRobertson

Bart Crisp joined the research team at CfEY in 2022. He has worked for the better part of a decade on promoting high-quality education research and evaluation, focused relentlessly on using evidence to improve the life chances and attainment of children and young people. Bart’s work has covered a diverse array of topics, in terms of designing and conducting research, supporting professional practice, and advising policymakers on key lessons from research and how to design to take them into account. Educational topics Bart has worked on include literacy teaching, particularly for learners facing disadvantage, via CUREE’s Response to Intervention training; the use of the arts, such as singing and dance, in teaching & learning via the Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s Teacher Development Fund; film education; teacher professional development (eg the creation of the Developing Great Teaching systematic review of systematic reviews), and; international & comparative educational policymaking, such as for Education International’s work on teachers’ professional identities around the world.

Bart also has extensive experience in designing tools and resources to support embedding professional learning into pedagogical practice, and has been involved in the creation of multiple systems for providing these tools to educational practitioners, including whole school improvement-focused evaluations (SKEIN Momentum), targeted practice development (Research Route Maps) and a variety of leadership-focused projects such as Peer Review for School Improvement in Lincolnshire.

Get in touch with Bart at [email protected] or on Twitter @crispy_bart