Department for Education (previously known as the Department for Children, Schools and Families)

Helen Wood
Helen is the Department for Education (previously known as the Department for Children, Schools and Families) Project Manager for the Next Steps study. She joined the team in August 2008 from the Department for Work and Pensions. Her job is to ensure that the study is completed at the right time, in the right way and that the data produced from it is used as effectively as possible. She works closely with policy makers in Department for Education (previously known as the Department for Children, Schools and Families) to make sure that the messages which come out of the survey are fed into the policies they develop. Helen has previous experience of managing surveys of a broad range of people including, partners of benefit claimants and disabled people in the UK.

Clare Baker
Clare is Team Leader for the Department for Education (previously known as the Department for Children, Schools and Families) team which runs Next Steps. She joined the Next Steps Team in 2007 and has been in the Department since 2001. Her main responsibility is to help to ensure that the Department has good quality information upon which to base its decisions and Next Steps is the single most important part of that. Clare lives and works in Sheffield and in her spare time she enjoys reading, swimming and spending time with her husband and family.

TNS-BMRB

BMRB is the longest established research agency in Britain, having been founded in 1933, and is based in Central London. In 2009 BMRB merged with another company, TNS (Taylor, Nelson, Sofres), to form TNS-BMRB. As well as Next Steps we also work on a number of other major studies for central government including the British Crime Survey. The team at TNS-BMRB is led by Mark Peters, who is supported by Nick Howat, Carrie Harding and Emily Pickering.

Mark Peters
Mark joined BMRB Social Research in 1999. Before then he was a social researcher in another research agency. Mark has worked on a number of projects looking at education and employment issues on behalf of the Department for Education (previously known as the Department for Children, Schools and Families) and other government departments. Recently, he has worked for the Department for Education (previously known as the Department for Children, Schools and Families) on the Youth Cohort Study, a long established research study also about young people, as well as on studies about teachers and about higher education and universities. Mark heads up the Next Steps team at BMRB and has worked on the study since BMRB joined it in 2003. In his spare time, Mark spends a lot of time traveling to watch his favourite football team – Portsmouth!

Carrie Harding
Carrie has been one of the key members of the Next Steps team since she joined BMRB on its graduate scheme in Spring, 2005. Prior to this, Carrie had previously worked at BMRB on a placement year while at university - she obviously found it such an interesting place to work that she couldn't wait to come back! Carrie's role on the Next Steps project covers many different aspects from helping to put together the questionnaire to designing this website. Outside of work Carrie can regularly be found at the cinema where she enjoys watching all sorts of films, from the latest US blockbusters to more low key small budget productions.

Nick Howat
Nick has been working as a social researcher for 9 years and has been on the Next Steps project since 2003. In that time Nick has been involved in the development of the questions asked each year and in producing the computer data files for analysis. In addition to the Next Steps study, Nick has worked on a number of other projects while at BMRB including a study for the FA looking at the State of the Football Nation.

Emily Pickering
Emily joined BMRB in 2007 after finishing university and is helping to run the project. Emily is on the graduate scheme at BMRB and is enjoying gaining more experience of research, after having worked for a small research company part-time while she was at university. Her role on Next Steps involves designing and writing the letters and emails that we send out to you, putting together the questionnaire, answering queries from Next Steps respondents, along with other day-to-day tasks. As well as Next Steps, Emily is working on another project for the Department for Education (previously known as the Department for Children, Schools and Families) about teachers workloads and school standards. Emily moved to London last summer and enjoys seeing West End musicals and plays in her spare time.

GfK NOP

NOP was founded in 1957, and became part of the worldwide GfK research company in 2005. Our team are based in central London but we have offices all over the world. We work on a lot of very large studies such as Next Steps. We also do a lot of work for central and local government. The team at GfK NOP is led by Nick Moon. Nick is supported by Claire Bhaumik and Elisabeth Brickell.

Nick Moon
Nick is Managing Director of GfK NOP Social Research. He started there as a trainee in 1977 and has worked his way all the way to the top! Nick has presented two papers based on the results of Next Steps at a conference in America in 2006, Naples in 2008. These were presented jointly with Iain Noble from Department for Education (previously known as the Department for Children, Schools and Families), using results from the Wave 3 interviews. There is now considerable interest in Next Steps, and in seeing the results of the study, not just here in the UK but all over the world. He and Iain have worked together on a number of research projects over the last 20 years (but still speak to each other) and in 1998 they were awarded the Market Research Society’s David Winton Prize for a joint research paper on telephone surveys. You may see Nick on television or hear him on the radio being interviewed about opinion polls, especially around the time of a General Election. Watch out for him!

Claire Bhaumik
Claire started working at GfK NOP in 2004 when she joined on the graduate scheme. Since then she has worked on a wide variety of surveys for different government departments including a large study about health and safety at work. She is looking forward to working on Next Steps again this year; her role will be to run carry out day to day tasks which GfK NOP are responsible for. In her spare time Claire likes to watch her favourite football team, Tottenham Hotspur.

Elisabeth Brickell
Elisabeth has worked at GfK NOP for just over a year now after joining on the graduate scheme in early January 2009. During this time she has worked on a number of interesting projects for central government and local authority clients as well as a long-running survey for Dogs Trust. She also has a year’s experience working within the Social Research department at BMRB. Fresh from a relaxed holiday in South Africa she is looking forward to getting involved in the Next Steps survey this year.