Friends joining: Tasha Alden and Jenni Back
Friends associated: Anne Watson and Tim Small
Wendy Scott is a Froebelian early years teacher with extensive experience in the PVI sector as well as schools. Headship of a demonstration nursery school led to a senior lectureship at Roehampton University, where she co-ordinated the original advanced diploma in multi-professional studies. Wendy was an early years and primary inspector in London and has worked across England for OFSTED. She led Early Education and chaired the national Early Childhood Forum before becoming a specialist adviser to the DfES, and working abroad with the British Council and UNICEF. She is currently President of TACTYC*, and judges Nursery of the Year. She has contributed a chapter to Experience and Faith in Education, and is very grateful that Friends involved in Quaker Values in Education are persisting in challenging current government education policies.
*TACTYC: Together And Committed To Young Children
Jeff Beatty
I live in Herefordshire and have taught in state and private schools. Now retired, I dedicate myself to charitable work, mainly Quaker, in the fields of education and refugee action. As a school governor in an academy I try to influence how the academy operates in support of all children and young people as individuals.
At present, I am on the executive of the Friends School Council, Quaker Peace and Social Witness Central Committee, clerk to the Quaker Peace Studies Trust in Bradford and on other groups which are not directly connected to education. In my home county and in Powys, I am involved with supporting refugees both through the City of Sanctuary movement and our local meeting, which is a Sanctuary Meeting. Now relieved of 6 years’ service as an AM clerk, I can give more energy to education, to refugee action and to schools.
Zoë Simms
I have been teaching since 1999 as a teacher of Religious Studies, Philosophy and Ethics, and as a Head of Department, Head of House, PSHE/Citizenship Lead, Charities Coordinator and Tutor. This has been in both sectors, but mainly in a Quaker Independent setting and I am currently teaching at an Independent School in Coventry. I am also a Farmington Scholar and an Assistant Examiner and Trainer for the exam board OCR.
I am a Local Meeting Clerk within Banbury and Evesham Area Meeting and I am currently a PhD Student at Birmingham University examining Quaker Studies within an education framework.
Chris Culpin
For many years I was a History teacher in comprehensive schools, mainly in Suffolk. I then became a freelance provider of resources for History teaching, through textbooks, stage shows, BBC Schools tv programmes, as well as running courses for teachers. For ten years I was Director of the Schools History Project. I am an Honorary Fellow of the Historical Association and worked regularly for Euroclio in training history teachers in several former totalitarian countries.
More recently I have become involved in school governorship and the importance not only of setting the ethos of a school but ensuring that those values are fully implemented. I am a National Leader of Governance and Chair of Trustees of our local comprehensive school in Somerset.
Martyn Beer
I am slightly stunned to be looking back (as well as looking forward) on 24 years of history teaching in a fairly diverse range of state and now an independent secondary school. Currently Deputy Head at Bootham School in York I have returned to the city in which I trained having taught in relatively leafy Oxfordshire, distinctly urban Leeds and Pudsey before touring Yorkshire with roles in Kirkby Lonsdale, Settle and Harrogate in schools judged (by Ofsted at least) to be in Special Measures, Requiring Improvement, Good and Outstanding. I sometimes found practice in those schools to be the very reverse of the judgements on the banners outside them. Election to the Association of School and College Leader’s (ASCL’s) Council in 2013 has provided fascinating opportunities for involvement in educational thinking and policy making and I’ve loved being a member of the Ethical Leadership Commission who met from 2017 to produce the Ethical Leadership Framework in 2018. I am also the very proud father of two rapidly growing, cricket loving boys, love sport in general and specifically cycling down mountain passes and refuelling in well-stocked cafes. I am delighted to be involved with QVinE – looking to spark discussion and change in the thinking around the values we live out in education.
David Day
Graduating in Sociology from University of York, I taught History first in Garforth Comprehensive, then Wyndham School, Cumberland - a very transformative experience in an outstanding idealistic school - staying 33 years until retiring in 2004.
At Wyndham I led our Year 7 Residential environmental study trips, ran the BookWeeks, served as Community Tutor, and co-led 6th Form exchanges working in Tanzanian rural schools. I was also a Teacher Governor.
In my retirement year I sailed the tall ship “The Endeavour” to Glasgow and back.
I then joined Age Concern for 7 years and developed a community research service evaluating services to the Aged. Retiring again I have kept busy serving on local & national Quaker committees and was one of the original founders of QVinE in 2014.
I have 3 sons & 3 grandchildren - we are all very close (not geographically) sharing passions for Cumbria, History, Music and Sport. Currently I live by the sea at Whitehaven and serve on CNC and as a Trustee of Cumberland AM and Pardshaw Centre.