Major education accolade for IOE's director
15 May 2009
Professor Geoff Whitty, director of the Institute of Education, London (IOE), will be first ever recipient of the Lady Plowden Memorial Medal, which recognises outstanding services to education.
The medal will be awarded this evening (15 May) by the College of Teachers (TCoT), which has created it to celebrate the significant, specific and lasting contribution of an individual to national or international education. It is named after the author of the 1967 Plowden Report, Lady Bridget Plowden, the first female president of TCoT, then called the College of Preceptors. Children and their Primary Schools was the first report on the UK's primary education.
Geoff Whitty specialises in the sociology of education, education policy and teacher education. He will receive the medal from Lady Plowden's daughter and son, Penelope and Francis Plowden.
Professor Whitty said: "I am honoured to be the first recipient of a medal named after Lady Plowden. Her work influenced my own thinking about the education of disadvantaged children, and she was also one of my most eminent predecessors as president of the College of Teachers.
Professor Alma Harris, current president of TCoT, said: "It is both appropriate and fitting that Geoff Whitty, an academic of the highest calibre and director of the Institute of Education is the first recipient of the Plowden Memorial Medal.
"Professor Whitty's contribution to education throughout his distinguished career has been outstanding. This College of Teachers is delighted to confer this award to acknowledge the significant contribution he has made to education."
Notes for editors
Further information from Helen Green, +44 (0)20 7612 6459, +44 (0)7734 540 870, h.green@ioe.ac.uk.
The Lady Plowden Memorial Medal will be presented at the College of Teachers' annual award ceremony, which will take place at the Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL, on Friday 15 May at 6pm. You are invited to attend the ceremony.
Geoff Whitty studied history at Cambridge University and then trained as a teacher at the Institute of Education, London. After teaching in primary and secondary schools, and undertaking higher degree studies in education, he held lectureships in education at the University of Bath and King's College London and professorial appointments at Bristol Polytechnic, Goldsmiths College and the Institute of Education. He became dean of research at the Institute in 1998 and has been director since September 2000. He has been a visiting professor in the USA and New Zealand. He is a member of the General Teaching Council for England and a specialist adviser to the House of Commons Children, Schools and Families Committee. He is also a former president of the British Educational Research Association (2005–2007) and of the College of Teachers (2004–2009).
The Institute of Education is a college of the University of London, specialising in teaching, research and consultancy in education and related areas of social science and professional practice. The Institute conducts over one-third of the educational research in the UK and last year's Research Assessment Exercise judged that 35 per cent of the work it had submitted was "world leading", while much of the remainder was of international significance.