The Education Futures Collaboration Trustees’ Annual Report 1[st] June 2022 – 31[st] May 2023
Charity name: The Education Futures Collaboration Registered charity number: 1157511 Charity’s principal address: 19 Firs Road Houghton on the Hill Leicester LE7 9GU Trustees: Prof Marilyn Leask - co-chair Prof Sarah Younie - co-chair Mr Michael Blamires Mr Jonathan Noakes Mr Stephen Hall Mr Richard Procter
Organisation type: CIO Governing document: Constitution
Aims
The Education Futures Collaboration is an education sector developed and managed initiative, providing an e-infrastructure to support education as it transforms into a knowledge focused collaboration and supporting knowledge transfer, collaborative knowledge building and sharing within education sectors in individual countries as well as worldwide.
We aim to professionalise teaching and to support professional judgement with evidence through the creation of a sustainable model for knowledge mobilisation and collaboration using digital tools in the education sector.
Objectives
We define success as increasing numbers of educators, worldwide, using the MESHGuides to support decision making. For a number of subject areas, we have been inundated with expressions of interest.
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Transform the quality of learning and teaching in education by providing accessible relevant research informed professional knowledge.
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Create a joined-up education profession linking pockets of excellence in teaching, research, and evidence-based practice.
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Provide diagnosis and intervention strategies to help educators and students overcome misconceptions and break through barriers to learning threshold concepts.
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Develop models of transformational and translational research in education, using scalable and cost-effective technologies.
Activities
International partnerships - UNESCO ITTF panel
The EFC (MESH project) was formally appointed as an NGO to the UNESCO International Teacher Task Force (ITTF) in 2020. This involves regular meetings with the ITTF panel, and EFC membership to the thematic sub-groups of this panel.
International partnerships - VSO
EFC/MESH has been working collaboratively with VSO (International Volunteer Services Overseas) on multiple projects again this year; including ‘Numeracy for All’; 'Inclusive Education' and ‘Psycho-Social Development’.
In addition, in 2022-23, VSO & EFC are collaborating on a new project based in Sierra Leone, which explores the use of an education app to support literacy and numeracy development with primary school children. This project is entitled ‘Unlocking Talent Through Technology: Improving and accelerating learning outcomes for early grade children in Sierra Leone’, working collaboratively with IT CHIMPLE app developers and the VSO office in Sierra Leone, with support from the Sierra Leone Ministry of Education.
International partnerships - ICET
EFC/MESH continues to work with ICET (International Council on Education for Teaching, www.icet4u.org) to run international webinars and to produce summaries of teachers’ experiences across different UN regions and countries. ICET is a global network of teacher educators from across the UN regions. Working collaboratively with ICET enables sharing of knowledge that is of benefit to both organisations. The EFC has representation on the ICET executive board.
November 15 2023 at 6:00pm GMT, is the next joint global webinar with ICET and MESH, on ‘Teacher Voice’, examining the experiences of teachers post-covid and looking at ‘lessons learnt’.
National partnerships
EFC continues to work in partnership with holders of research knowledge to create MESHGuide research summaries. For example, work is ongoing with Wolverhampton university to deliver staff professional development, with a view to developing knowledge exchange, via the writing of new MESHGuides.
Research Project BRIST Project - 2019-2022 (Building a Research Infrastructure for Teachers)
This project was completed this year in December 2022. Erasmus is a European grant to help develop global citizens. Academics from the Education Futures Collaboration Charity, working on the MESH project, joined forces with the University of Hull, to lead a three-year international project that will develop teachers’ research skills and networking practices. The researchers were awarded €354k of European funding for the project, to develop teachers into teacher-researchers and evidence-informed practitioners through an innovative Infrastructure and an app. The budget was allocated for specific actions allocated to different partners in the project.
The funding was awarded through the Erasmus+ programme, which supports international partnerships seeking to enhance education. The Education Futures Collaboration Charity and the University of Hull joined with research partners from across Europe, including the Republic of Ireland, Poland, Greece and Spain. The project has sought to inform teacher education practice in its partner countries and more widely.
MESHGuide Development
One of the main achievements of the EFC is the publishing of MESHGuides. There continues to be much interest in writing for MESH across a range of relevant topics. Much developmental work has been undertaken this year which welcomes new authors and has the potential to secure completed Guides in the future. A simpler Guide format is to be trialled to secure more completed Guides in the future. Statistics show an extremely buoyant picture of MESHGuide use in the last year. 3 new guides were published this year:
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Using the principles of practice based research to develop professional development programmes. Authors Christina Preston & Stephen Hall
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VOOCS for VET teacher professionalization. Author Pieter Seuneke
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The education of highly able learners. Authors Hilary Lowe & Jonathan Doherty
There are also more Guides currently in development which should be published throughout the next year.
Communication and Publicity
Several key communication and publicity activities have taken place during the year. They include:
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Focussing the format of a seasonal newsletter which would appeal both to existing stakeholders who use or work with MESH as well as prospective users and contributors to creating MESHGuides.
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The publicity team have various projects underway which will benefit from publicity in the proposed newsletter, Twitter, Linked In, Naace journal, VoiceEd radio and a new Guardian initiative called Future of EdTech Campaign. We also hope to keep the Fabians involved and we will try the TES again. We do not think SchoolWeek is the right medium for promoting MESHGuides.
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We have developed a new MESHGuide about practice based research and a snapshot which along with the one on Rhizomatic Learning will be a key element in the publicity that is about to surround the archiving of the MirandaNet Fellowship at the British Library. This MESHGuide will also be published in the Autumn edition of the Naace journal.
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The creation a piece of research with members of Naace, MirandaNet, MESHGuides and TPEA that will be used to influence politicians before and after the forthcoming national election. We are planning to publish in the Spring with articles from the 4 regions of the UK
who spoke at the last conference in July in Bedford 2023. We will also be asking some key thinkers to write a piece.
Website Reach
The main point of access for people is the website. The website is getting good coverage with the Guides site getting the most users, with a good number of users being in the Philippines and Singapore. Some Guides that consistently get a good number of views are those on validity and reliability, and Guides on carrying out research. For the Guides site we have just reached over 1,000,000 page views over the last six years.
Further Work
Members of the steering group continue to contribute to education research and development across the world. Members have developed an extensive school friendly toolkit for Research Informed School self Evaluation (RISE). Due to the pressures on schools we have continued to find it difficult to begin a pilot of these materials in schools. Members continued to work with VSO as a volunteer coopted onto the Psycho Social Skills Task Group. We continue to support educators working in emergency and conflict settings and repurpose and develop resources with them. These include crib sheets for educators new to teaching as well as longer e learning modules on inclusion and universal design.
EFC Board
The EFC trustees are supported by the EFC board. This group sets and reviews the short-term and long-term strategy. Decisions are normally made on the basis of consensus at board meetings, but the trustees have the ultimate legal responsibility. The name below are the list of current board members and the roles they have on the board:
| Marilyn Leask | Co-chair |
|---|---|
| Sarah Younie | Co-chair and Rep on UN TT Panel and thematic group for Inclusion |
| Jon Audain | Newsletter and social media |
| Mike Blamires | Core editorial team on MESHGuides and badging development |
| Linda Delvin | Twitter strategy and Rep on UN TTF – thematic group for school leadership |
| Jonathon Doherty | MESHGuide development - Global North and Rep on UN TTF early childhood |
| Larissa Mclean Davies | MESHGuide development - Global South |
| Stephen Hall | Communications & media lead and Rep on UN TTF school leadership |
| Christina Preston | Press lead |
| Richard Procter | MESHGuides website & software development officer |
| Matt Scase | Finance officer and secretary |
| Chris Shelton | Teacher education lead |
| Rosie Rafferty | Engagement with international government priorities |
| Kate Reynolds | Engagement with unions and international government |
Public Benefit Statement
The Trustees confirm that they have referred to the guidance contained in the Charity Commission's general guidance on public benefit when reviewing the charity's aims and objectives and in planning future activities. The trustees refer to public benefit throughout this report.
Our charity was set up to benefit the general public and in particular education professionals and students. The organisation's purpose is beneficial as is aims to advance the standards of education and in particular, teaching, learning, research and collaboration amongst education professionals. The trustees are not aware of any detriment or harm which might result from the organisation’s purpose. The charity has a Conflict of Interest Register, which is updated at every Management Meeting and Meeting of Trustees.
Financial Review
It has been agreed to keep one year’s worth of regular expenditure in reserve. This is to cover costs of such things like web hosting, tech support and the finance role. Therefore, it is agreed the reserves should be kept at £2,000.
On top of our reserve policy, it is agreed to make sure we carry enough money to be able to support the running of the website, hosting the MESHGuides, for a least the next five years.
| Annual accounts for the financial year 1stJune 2022 – 31stMay 2023 Receipts and payment account Prepared by Matt Scase 28th June 2023 |
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| Opening Balance 1st June 2022 £23,905.77 |
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| Receipts EFC Brist Project 11,632.64 VSO - Sierra Leone Project 22,120.42 Founder Member Contribution 1,000.00 University of Wolverhampton Workshops 1,946.20 Pieter Seuneke MESHGuide 400.00 Donations 1,627.41 Bank Interest 41.56 Other 400.00 Total £39,168.23 Payments EFC Brist Project 11,632.64 VSO - Sierra Leone Project 2,843.17 Finance 1,355.00 Technical Support 1,000.00 Bank Charges 72.00 Website Costs (hosting, domain,…) 108.54 Total £17,011.35 |
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| Closing Balance 31st May 2023 £46,062.65 |
The financial year for the Educations Futures Collaboration runs from 1[st] June – 31[st] May. The only regular income for the EFC is the founding membership contributions and we are very grateful for the financial support they offer. The regular expenditure for the EFC is mainly the payment of myself for the finance and social media work, and the admin costs of running and maintaining the website, the location of the published MESHGuides. The following finance policy is in place regarding the cost of publishing and maintaining the MESHGuides:
The following sets out the funding position and financial contributions for potential MESHGuides being produced:
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Where the guide being produced has received no funding, the charity, EFC, will try to find the funding to publish the guide.
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Where the guide being produced has received funding there is an expectation that a fee will be agreed, between EFC and the party producing the guide, towards the cost of publishing and maintaining the guide long term.
On top of the regular income and expenditure, the account also holds the money we receive for larger projects. In this financial year we have received money for a new research project in collaboration with VSO that is taking place in the Seirra Leine. Payments totalling £1,946.20 were received from the University of Wolverhampton for workshops that Sarah Younie carried out. We also received money ongoing BRIST Project (which we also received money for in the previous financial year), as well as contributions towards a new MESHGuide.
Donations to the EFC include those from individuals as well as Amazon Smile. Amazon Smile is an affiliate link that when people use to purchase items from Amazon a percentage of the fee is donated to the charity.
On the 30[th] May 2023 the EFC received a payment of £400. This was unknown to the EFC and after contacting the CAF bank they informed us that this was a misplaced transfer and should not have gone into our account. The CAF bank, citing GDPR, would not elaborate further on this transfer but it was returned to the sender as a misplaced credit on 16th June 2023 (which falls after our financial year ended).
Currently we hold a single account with the CAF Bank where all our reserves are held. At the end of the financial year there was £46,062.65 in the bank. This is a large amount to hold for a charity of our size, but this is down to the ongoing projects that are taking place. A full breakdown of how much is allocated to each project can be found below.
Annual reports are required by the Charities Commission and have been filed on time.
Independent Examination
With the money received for the various projects the EFC passed the threshold for needed an independent examination of the year end account. The was conducted by Mark Brown who completed the examination and found no issues so signed them off.
EDUCATION FUTURES COLLABORATION CHARITY NO 1157511
ANNUAL ACCOUNTS FINANCIAL YEAR: 01 June 2022 / 31 May 2023
RECEIPT AND PAYMENT
Prepared by Matt Scase
Date: 28[th] June 2023
OPENING BALANCE 01.06.2022
£23,905.77
Receipts
| EFC Brist Project | 11,632.64 | |
|---|---|---|
| BATOD - Sierra Leone Project | 22,120.42 | |
| Founder Member Contribution | 1,000.00 | |
| University of Wolverhampton Workshops | 1,946.20 | |
| Pieter Seuneke MESHGuide | 400.00 | |
| Donations | 1,627.41 | |
| Bank Interest | 41.56 | |
| Other | 400.00 | |
| TOTAL | 39,168.23 | |
| Payments | ||
| EFC Brist Project | 11,632.64 | |
| BATOD - Sierra Leone Project | 2,843.17 | |
| Finance | 1,355.00 | |
| Technical Support | 1,000.00 | |
| Bank Charges | 72.00 | |
| Website Costs (hosting, domain,…) | 108.54 | |
| TOTAL | 17,011.35 | |
| CLOSING BALANCE | 31.05.2023 | £46,062.65 |
£46,062.65
The Education Futures Collaboration Charrty Number 1157511 Independent eyaminels report on the accounts Financial Year I" June 2022- 31 May 2023 Responslbllltles and ba51$ of report I report to the trustees on my examinab.on of the accounts of the above chartty 1.the Trust'l for the year ended 3110512023. As the charity's trustees, you are responsible ft>r the preparation of the accounts In accordance with the requirements of the Charith"es Act 20111.the Acfl. I report in respect of my examinats'on of the Trust's accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examinatr'on, I have followed all the applicable DirectTrons given by the Charity Commission under Section 14515llb) of the Act. Independent ex•rnlner's stalement I have completed my examlnation. I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn In this port in order to enable proper understanding of the accounts to be reached. Name: Address.. Signed: Date: loll.