Sir Robert Salisbury is an educationalist, and a "leading expert" on education funding. He has an international reputation for his ideas on leadership styles and staff motivation. He is most noted for transforming a failing secondary school in a pit village in Nottinghamshire into a "beacon of success" at the heart of its community, winning a number of awards and attracting a stream of famous visitors.

Career

Until 2001, he was a Professor in the School of Education at the

University of Nottingham The University of Nottingham is a public research university in Nottingham, England. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. Nottingham's main campus (University Park Campus, Nottingh ...

. Before that he was head teacher at The Garibaldi School in Forest Town, Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. When he was appointed head teacher there in 1989, the school had a poor reputation and unmotivated staff. His five-year plan turned the school round, and by 1993 Salisbury had become recognised as a successful entrepreneur. In 1998, Salisbury was knighted for his work in Education.Second knighthood honour for Garibaldi - Mansfield woman's OBE 'shock'
''Chad'', Mansfield local newspaper, 14 June 2014. Retrieved 26 2 January 2009 In 2011 he led an enquiry into numeracy and literacy at schools in Northern Ireland. In 2013, he reviewed the funding of schools in Northern Ireland for the Northern Ireland department for education. His review claimed that there was "a long rump of under-achievement in Northern Ireland", and that "Northern Ireland has too many small schools and too many types of school which can no longer be funded". In or before 2015, he was asked to review further education colleges. In 2019, he was criticised by the DUP MP

Ian Paisley Ian Richard Kyle Paisley, Baron Bannside, (6 April 1926 – 12 September 2014) was a loyalist politician and Protestant religious leader from Northern Ireland who served as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) from 1971 to 2008 and ...

for "dismissing a significant number of high-achieving young adults in Northern Ireland", when he described some of the top schools in Northern Ireland as "Exam factories".

Personal life

Robert Salisbury was born in Newton Drive, Stapleford and moved to Warren Avenue when aged eleven. He and his wife Rosemary now live in County Tyrone, where they have spent 15 years converting 17 acres of barren fields into a wildlife refuge.

Publications

* ''Field Of Dreams: How We Transformed a Rural Desert into a Thriving Wildlife Garden'' , under the pen-name ''Bob Salisbury'' * ''An independent review of the common funding scheme''. Sir Robert Salisbury, Chair, Independent Review of Common Funding Scheme (January 2013) https://dera.ioe.ac.uk/16379/7/independent_review_of_cfs_Redacted.pdf * Salisbury, R. (2009). Report of the Literacy and Numeracy Taskforce. Available from: http://www.deni.gov.uk/literacy_and_numeracy_taskforce_report_2008-2010.pdf, as referenced in https://pure.ulster.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/11364696/Education_Policy_in_NI_a_Review.pdf

References

External links

* Testimony to Committee for Education Inquiry into Shared and Integrated Education (2015): http://aims.niassembly.gov.uk/officialreport/minutesofevidencereport.aspx?AgendaId=12657&eveID=7454 {{DEFAULTSORT:Salisbury, Robert Living people Educational researchers Schoolteachers from Nottinghamshire Academics of the University of Nottingham Heads of schools in England Year of birth missing (living people)