Jean Gross CBE
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.