How policy happens: Understanding the decisions that shape our education systems

Stop treating education like a political football! Think long term! Follow the evidence!

Calls like these echo across society. Yet governments continue to swerve, U-turn, and spit decisions out as if at random. Policy-making, therefore, remains an impenetrable black box to those who live with the consequences.

Join Loic Menzies, in conversation with Baroness Nicky Morgan, David Laws, Prof Anna Vignoles and Rae Snape, to explore how policy really gets made – not in tidy theories or ministerial press lines, but in time-pressured collisions between convictions, evidence, and conflicting demands.

Drawing on insights from Loic's book How Policy Happens: Understanding the Decisions that Shape Our Education Systems, the panel will take a fresh look at the last four decades of education reform – from selective schools and academisation to curriculum and funding – to uncover the funnels or forces that push policy down a particular track.

About the speakers

Loic Menzies is an education researcher and policy specialist whose work bridges academia, government and the third-sector. Loic is a frequent commentator on education issues in the media and works closely with sector stakeholders including the Department for Education and Number 10. He is an Associate Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) where he has authored numerous reports that have gone on to shape government policies, and Chief Research Office at the Centre for Education Systems, an international institute for the comparative study of education systems around the world. 

Loic is the former CEO of a national think tank and a Senior Research Associate in the Intellectual Forum at Jesus College Cambridge. He is the author of Young People on the Margins: Priorities for action in education and youth, and How Policy Happens: Understanding the decisions that shape our education systems, both published by Routledge. Prior to working in research and policy, Loic was a youth worker in Cambridge, a teacher in London, and then a tutor in the Faculty of Education at Canterbury Christ Church University.

The Rt Hon the Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Nicky Morgan) is a former Conservative MP and Minister. She is now a member of the House of Lords and has a portfolio career with roles across the private and public sectors, including as Senior Independent Director at Santander UK, Chair of the Advertising Standards Authority, Chair of the Careers & Enterprise Company and Deputy Chair at the Science Museum Group.

Nicky served in the Cabinets of David Cameron and Boris Johnson as, respectively, Minister for Women & Equalities, Education Secretary and Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Secretary. She also chaired the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee for 2 years. She was the Member of Parliament for Loughborough between 2010 and 2019.  Before being elected she worked as a solicitor specialising in M&A.

David Laws was MP for Yeovil from 2001 to 2015. He was one of the Lib Dem team who negotiated the 2010 Cameron-Clegg Coalition and served as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Schools Minister and Cabinet Office Minister. He founded and chaired the Education Policy Institute and is now Chair of the exam board AQA and of Energy UK. He has written a number of books, including Coalition (2016).

Anna Vignoles was Professor of Education at the University of Cambridge before becoming the Director of the Leverhulme Trust in 2021. An economist of education, her research focused on issues of equity and value in education, and the role played by education and skills in the economy and wider society. She was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2017 and awarded a CBE in 2019 for services to social sciences. Anna is a member of the Council of the Royal Economic Society and is a member of the World Economic Forum Human Capital Council.

Rae Snape has been teaching for over 30 years and has been a Headteacher since 2007. She is currently the Headteacher at Milton Road Primary School, Cambridge. Rae has contributed to several books on education and is the author of The Headteacher's Handbook and the Curriculum Compendium, both published by Bloomsbury. Rae speaks at conferences, and leads training particularly in the areas of educational leadership, curriculum design and well-being.

Interested in Education Policy and how it transfers into practice, Rae was a member of the Primary Headteacher’s Reference Group at the DfE for nine years. She is a Founding Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching, a Co-Chair of the newly founded Cambridge Chapter of Citizens UK, and the delighted recipient of an Honorary Fellowship from Suffolk University. LinkedIn: @RaeSnape.

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