Mike Gibbons Biography - Cisco Systems

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Mike joined the DfES Innovation Unit in November 2002 as the Lead Director. The Unit itself was established as a result of the Education White Paper 'Schools: Achieving Success'. The intention is to be able to encourage and respond to innovative approaches to teaching and learning and school management from across the school system.

Mike has worked in schools for thirty years and has twenty years experience as a senior manager. He has led four schools: a community school in the West Midlands, a very large specialist technology school in Newcastle upon Tyne, a large voluntary aided Church of England specialist Language College with a sixth form of 400 in Cumbria and, most recently, was Principal and Chief Executive of an International 3-18 school in Brussels that has students from 65 countries.

He is passionate about the role of education in developing people and communities and about the importance of the teacher's role in this. He has particular interests in the leadership of education, the future of schooling, post-16 education, specialist schooling and the role of schools in the community.

Mike is also keenly interested in the interface between policy and practice and is a founder member of the Governing Council of the National College for School Leadership, a former member of the Governing Council of the Technology Colleges Trust and of the Qualifications Committee of QCA. He plays an active role in the work of the NCSL think-tank.

He has four grown up children, all of whom attended comprehensive schools in the Midlands and the north of England and who then went on to graduate from Universities in the UK.