SNE Event

Lee Owston

National Schools Director, Ofsted

Lee came into the role with a wealth of experience, having previously filled the position temporarily for several months earlier this year. Since joining Ofsted in 2013 as one of His Majesty’s Inspectors, Lee has taken on various roles and made great contributions to many areas of the organisation and education sector, including early years, schools, teacher development and special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Before joining Ofsted, Lee held senior leadership positions in schools, was Senior Adviser for early education and primary schools in a local authority and was Regional Director for The National Strategies, where he contributed to national publications on English, phonics and assessment.

Jean Gross CBE

Education Expert and Best-Selling Author

A popular speaker and writer, Jean Gross is a national expert on tackling disadvantage in all its
forms.
Her best-selling book, Reaching the unseen children explores what schools can do to raise the
attainment of children from low-income backgrounds, particularly for a group who consistently do
worse in our education system than almost all others – white children eligible for free school meals.
Jean has been a teacher, an educational psychologist, head of children’s services in a local authority,
and a Visiting and Associate Fellow at three universities. She was formerly the government’s
Communication Champion for children, responsible for promoting the importance of good language
skills. Before this she headed a charity responsible for the Every Child a Reader and Every Child
Counts literacy and numeracy tutoring programmes, and led work on overcoming barriers to
achievement as a Director of the government’s National Strategies. She was awarded a CBE for
services to education in 2011.

Estelle Morris, Baroness Morris of Yardley

Former Secretary of State for Education and Skills

Estelle Morris, Baroness Morris of Yardley, started her career in education as a teacher in an inner city multi racial comprehensive school where she taught for 18 years. In 1992 she entered Parliament and in 2001 became the Secretary of State for Education and Skills. She followed this with 2 years as a Minister at the Department of Culture Media and Sport and left Parliament in 2005.

Since then she has combined a career that includes senior posts both in education and the arts as well as being a member of the House of Lords.

She now works at the Institute of Effective Education at the University of York which aims to transform the relationship between education research and practice so that policy making and teaching can become more evidence based.

She is a trustee of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and The Roundhouse and Chair of the National Coal Mining Museum. She also chairs the Council at Goldsmiths College.

She is a regular contributor to Guardian Education.

INVITED: Bridget Phillipson MP

Secretary of State for Education

Bridget is the Labour Member of Parliament for Houghton and Sunderland South; one of three constituencies in the City of Sunderland. She was first elected to the seat on 6 May 2010, and was most recently re-elected at the 2024 General Election. She is also the Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Women and Equalities.

Chris Zarraga

Director, Schools North East

Chris has been part of the Schools North East team since its inception in 2007 and in 2019 he was appointed Director.

Chris works with other leaders across the North East, the education sector and charity sector to represent the voice of North East schools, and lobby policy makers to ensure that the North East is not left behind when it comes to education policy. Chris has overseen the launch of the Ednorth evidence-based excellence programme, as well as the partnership with SHINE bringing over £500,000 worth of funding to North East schools.

Under Chris, Schools North East has moved to a greater focus on lobbying around education policy, with the launch of the Manifesto for North East Education in December 2019. As well as being a trustee of a local MAT, Chris sits on various boards including the board for Opportunity North East. Prior to joining Schools North East, Chris worked with over 165 schools in the North East and various education organisations including local authorities, Excellence Partnerships, 14-19 Groups, the Specialist Schools & Academies Trust, and School Improvement Officers. He led a large scale culture change project in education across the North East and was the development consultant for the LEGI funded Wansbeck Enterprise Education Network.