Suanne Gibson has over 20 years’ experience working in Higher Education in teaching, research and leadership positions and 10 years as a teacher and youth worker in education and third sector organisations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and England. An international leader of inclusive education, she directs regional, national and international research projects on the policy and practice of inclusive education for Disability/Special Educational Needs and other minority/protected groups. In the past three years she has secured £425,000 in funding for four different projects with the Department of Education, Plymouth City Council, Office for Students, University of Plymouth’s Widening Participation initiatives and the Royal Academy of Engineering.
Suanne’s mentoring programmes have worked with over 600 young people across Plymouth since 2022 and her project outputs include a revised definition of inclusion for Plymouth schools and the city’s new graduated approach for SEND, contribution to alternative provision plans including new progressive forms of internal school exclusion, developing and leading CPD workshops for Head Teachers, SENCOs, Teachers, TAs, revised approaches to school leadership (systems and communication channels), and inclusive classroom pedagogy and new in-school mentoring programmes (KS 2, 3, 4, special education and Locked After Children) with evidenced impact on at-risk pupils’ achievement, attendance and wellbeing. Suanne leads strategic partnerships with the third sector, education policy leaders and practitioners for sustained cross-sector change with evidenced impact, she has published widely. In 2012 Suanne received a coveted National Teaching Fellowship from Advance HE, in 2014 she was invited by the Royal Society of the Arts to become a Fellow and in 2022 she was presented with University of Plymouth’s Research Award for Outstanding Impact in Public Policy, Law and Services.