About
About James:
Short bio (100 words):
Dr James Mannion is a teacher trainer, author, speaker, podcaster and government adviser. He began his career as a secondary science teacher, spending 12 years in the classroom and 8 in school leadership, and holds a PhD in self-regulated learning from the University of Cambridge. He is the author of Fear is the Mind Killer (2020) and Making Change Stick (Hodder, 2025), a practical guide to implementing school improvement. He works with schools internationally, and hosts two podcasts - Making Change Stick in Schools and Rethinking Education, which has had over half a million plays to date.
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Long bio (250 words):​
Dr James Mannion is a teacher trainer, author, speaker, podcaster, education consultant and government adviser. He began his career as a secondary science teacher, spending 12 years in the classroom and 8 in school leadership. He has an MA in person-centred education from the University of Sussex, and a PhD in self-regulated learning from the University of Cambridge, where his doctoral study – an 8-year evaluation of the Learning Skills Curriculum, a whole-school initiative – produced significant learning gains across the curriculum, with the largest gains among disadvantaged students.
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That work became the focus of his first book, Fear is the Mind Killer (2020), co-authored with Kate McAllister. His second, Making Change Stick (Hodder, 2025), is a practical guide to implementing school improvement using the science of implementation. He has since developed an accompanying online training suite used by hundreds of schools around the world. He also works with schools internationally to design and implement curricula that educate the whole child.
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Formerly a Bespoke Programmes Leader in the Centre for Educational Leadership at the UCL Institute of Education, James is an Associate of Oracy Cambridge, and a Bye-Fellow of Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge. He hosts two podcasts - Rethinking Education (long-form, monthly, with over half a million plays to date); and Making Change Stick in Schools (short-form, weekly). His TEDx talk How to change the world has been viewed over 30,000 times. He has also written and performed in four rock musicals - so far…
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