The Education and Training Foundation (ETF) is the sector-owned, government-backed workforce development body for the Further Education and Training sector.

The charity’s mission is to support the continuing transformation of our country’s technical and vocational education system by ensuring the sector has world-class teachers, trainers, assessors and leaders. This leads to ever-improving learner outcomes, a better skilled workforce and a stronger economy, country and society. It does this by:

• Setting professional standards, awarding QTLS and ATS, and, managing the Society for Education and Training, the professional membership body for the sector
• Supporting the sector through reform and change
• Leading professional and workforce development for teachers, trainers, assessors, leaders and governors
• Being the home of independent, impartial and comprehensive workforce data and research

Education Placement Group (EPG) is a specialist education recruitment business which provides supply teachers and support staff to primary, secondary (including academies), special educational needs schools and nurseries across England and Wales.

With more than 20 years experience in state, independent and international sectors, its clients benefit from a network of UK and international offices, that deliver a global service solution through branches, utilizing local knowledge.

It operates through offices across England and Wales and overseas in Ireland, Canada and Australia for teacher recruitment. Services are delivered through four core divisions: Supply Desk, Teach In, just teachers and Qualified Schools.

EPG’s mission is to supply the highest quality services in order to support both the schools and the candidates in their effort to achieve exceptional standards of education and the highest levels of pupil attainment.

Lodestone is a strategy and corporate communications agency providing sharp analysis, creative thinking and agile delivery. Lodestone helps organisations to tell their own stories, in their own voices, navigating a course to success. We offer a wide range of services, including: Strategy & Advisory; Public Affairs; PR, Corporate & Financial Comms; Reputation Management & Crisis Comms; Coaching & Executive Training; Digital; Insight & Research; Lodestone Local; Political Risk.

LGfL is a charity committed to the advancement of education through digital innovation. Serving a growing community of thousands of schools in London and across the UK we are focused on saving schools money, tackling inequality, promoting wellbeing and keeping children safe. We champion digital disruption and, this year, were recognised in the EDTECH Top 50 “movers and shakers”.

Our large community means that we generate economies of scale enabling schools savings of millions of pounds every year through procurement. This academic year alone we have helped schools identify over £8M in potential funding claims for disadvantaged children.

A key focus for 2018 has been on cybersecurity and we have implemented some of the world’s biggest projects for ransomware and malware protection. We are currently championing the use of cloud services with ground breaking collaborations with Google and Microsoft.

Loughborough University is one of the country’s leading universities, with an international reputation for its research and teaching, strong links with industry, and unrivalled achievement in sport and its underpinning academic disciplines.

Loughborough is ranked 4th in the Guardian University Guide 2019 and 7th in both the Complete University Guide 2019 and The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2018. It was rated top in the country for its student experience in the 2018 THE Student Experience Survey and named University of the Year at the Whatuni Student Choice Awards 2018.

It has been awarded a ‘five stars plus’ rating in the independent QS Stars university rating scheme and named the best university in the world to study sports-related subjects in the 2018 QS World University Rankings. In recognition of its contribution to the sector, Loughborough has been awarded seven Queen’s Anniversary Prizes.

The Loughborough University London campus is based on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and offers postgraduate and executive-level education, as well as research and enterprise opportunities. It is home to influential thought leaders, pioneering researchers and creative innovators who provide students with the highest quality of teaching and the very latest in modern thinking.

The University of Manchester, a member of the prestigious Russell Group, is the UK’s largest single-site university with more than 40,000 students – including more than 10,000 from overseas. It is consistently ranked among the world’s elite for graduate employability.

The University is also one of the country’s major research institutions, rated fifth in the UK in terms of ‘research power’ (REF 2014). World-class research is carried out across a diverse range of fields including cancer, advanced materials, global inequalities, energy and industrial biotechnology. No fewer than 25 Nobel laureates have either worked or studied here.

It is the only UK university to have social responsibility among its core strategic objectives, with staff and students alike dedicated to making a positive difference in communities around the world.

Manchester is ranked 29th in the world in the QS World University Rankings 2018 and 6th in the UK.

The University of East Anglia (UEA) motto is Do Different. Founded in 1963, UEA set out to blend academic disciplines to provide students with more rounded and interdisciplinary learning – breaking new ground in both the sciences and the art and humanities.

UEA developed interdisciplinary environmental sciences and that cross-fertilisation of disciplines helped lead to the development of UEA’s world-renowned Climatic Research Unit. The same “do different” ethos also inspired the UK’s very first MA in Creative Writing which has gone on to produce a stellar list of literary alumni, including Nobel Laureate Sir Kazuo Ishiguro.

UEA combines high quality teaching with world-leading research. Located on the Norwich Research Park, home to Europe’s leading centres for research in food, health and the environment, UEA is ranked in the top 15 of UK universities, rated Gold under the Teaching Excellence Framework, and 10th in the UK for quality of research outputs.