Andrew Pollard


Andrew Pollard is Head of Research Impact at the Institute of Education, University College London. Formerly, he was Professor of Education at the universities of Cambridge, Bristol and the West of England, Bristol. He chaired the Education Sub-panel for the 2014 Research Excellence Framework on behalf of UK Higher Education Funding Councils, which involves assessing the quality of research undertaken in UK universities. He was Director of the ESRC Teaching and Learning Research Programme from 2002–09, of the UK Strategic Forum for Research in Education from 2008–11 and of ESCalate, the Education Subject Centre of the UK's Higher Education Academy. He is a non-executive director of William Pollard & Co. Ltd. a print and communications company, founded in 1781 and based in Exeter.
He received his BA in Sociology and Economics from the University of Leeds, PGCE in Education from the University of Lancaster, M.Ed from the University of Sheffield and PhD in the Sociology of Education from the University of Sheffield. He has an honorary doctorate from the University of Edinburgh and is an Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge.
As a former school teacher, Pollard's research interests include teaching-learning processes and learner perspectives, as well as the development of evidence-based classroom practice. He is responsible for a popular series of textbooks and support materials on reflective teaching within primary and secondary schooling.
He has worked extensively on the effects of national and institutional policies on learning, including on the impact work of TLRP, focusing project findings on contemporary issues in lifelong and workplace learning, higher and further education and in schooling. Previously, he co-directed the Primary, Assessment, Curriculum and Experience project tracking the impact of education legislation on practices and experiences in English primary school classrooms. His early research developed into the Identity and Learning Programme, a longitudinal ethnographic study of the interaction of identity, learning, assessment, career and social differentiation in children's experiences of schooling from age 4 to 16. During 2011, he was part of an Expert Panel advising, and challenging, the English government on a Review of the National Curriculum.
With a long-standing interest in the design, management and evaluation of research projects in education, Pollard has worked extensively with schools and local authorities including many UK education agencies and funding bodies such as ESRC, Training and Development Agency for Schools TDA, QCA, the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation and HEFCE.

Publications