Happen is very excited to be continuing its sponsorship of James Dawson through his Doctorate in Education programme at the University of East London. His work will focus upon the processes of innovation and change within primary schools and explore a number of issues ranging from initial change agents to the prospect of sustaining momentum towards continual and prolonged improvement.

Having completed two modules successfully exploring both research paradigms and the use of digital audio critical incident diaries, he will, over the course of this year, explore the themes of Strategic Educational Leadership for Our Time and Educational Leadership and Management in Diverse and Complex Situations.

James is particularly interested to learn from the corporate sector and transfer techniques and strategies, particularly in the area of innovation, to the context of an educational setting incorporating the perspectives of all relevant stakeholders. It is also expected that this partnership will bring to the forefront of the educational standards agenda the issue of change and sustainability whilst allowing both parties to learn informally from one another.

James, has recently been appointed as Deputy Head Teacher of an inner-city primary school in Newham and will take up his new post in January 2010.