
Sue has spent all her life in education, as a student, teacher, researcher academic - and always as a learner.
She trained as a school teacher at what was then Homerton College of Education, where she was also sabbatical president of the student union. Sue then taught in state schools for ten years (both primary and secondary phase), including a year on exchange in Australia. Involvement in the national pilot of an initiative to celebrate pupils’ full range of achievements and to support them in recording and planning their personal development led to Sue’s decade of working in local authorities. She led professional development programmes, worked closely with headteachers to improve the quality of education in a wide variety of schools, and was involved in university-school research projects.
In 2000 Sue was appointed to the Faculty of Education as a lecturer for educational leadership and school improvement, researching in these areas and teaching predominantly on masters and doctoral programmes with both full and part-time students. Having completed two masters degrees and her PhD while also working full-time, Sue is fully aware of the demands of part-time graduate study.
She is a past president and honorary life member of the Association for Achievement and Improvement through Assessment (AAIA), Associate Editor of the journal Professional Development in Education, and on the editorial advisory board of Assessment in Education: principles, policy and practice. Along with being a Fellow of Wolfson College Cambridge, Sue is a Syndic of Cambridge University Press and of Cambridge Assessment, and an Adjunct Research Fellow in the Griffith Institute for Educational Research, Griffith University, Brisbane.