The Commission
Co-Chairs
Sir Trevor Pears CMG
Executive Chair of the Pears Foundation
Sir Trevor Pears is Executive Chair of Pears Foundation, establishing the Foundation alongside his brothers Mark and David to fund organisations and projects working to deliver progress on key issues affecting the wellbeing of people in the UK and all over the world. The Pears family has given more than £450 million to charity since the Foundation was established. Sir Trevor is a Director of the William Pears Group, the Pears family’s property business. He was made a CMG in 2011 and was awarded a Knighthood for services to philanthropy in 2017.
Sir Mufti Hamid Patel CBE
Star Academies, CEO
Sir Mufti Hamid Patel is the Chief Executive of Star Academies. He has led the trust since its inception. He is passionate about the highest of ambition for children and young people from the most disadvantaged communities across the country, and this vision has guided the philosophy of the trust and his own work in particular. Widely recognised as one of the UK’s leading educational voices, Hamid was made a CBE in 2015 and awarded a knighthood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2021.
Commissioners
Amy Braier
Pears Foundation, Director
Amy Braier has been Director of Pears Foundation since 2012, having previously worked in policy roles at the Greater London Authority and the Antisemitism Policy Trust. She works closely with Sir Trevor and the Pears family to help them achieve their philanthropic vision, leading the Foundation’s operations and professional team and overseeing a varied portfolio of programmes and grants. She is also Chair of Trustees of the Miscarriage Association.
Helena Brothwell
Ormiston Academies, Education Director (North)
Helena Brothwell is the Director of Education (North) at Ormiston Academies Trust, a national academy trust with over 35,000 pupils across the Trust’s 42 schools. Helena is a frequent contributor to discussions of best practice across England’s educational landscape and is an experienced teacher and former Principal. She previously worked as a Head of School Improvement at David Ross Education Trust.
Carolyn Bunting
Internet Matters, Co-CEO
Carolyn has been leading Internet Matters since its launch in May 2014. She has a wealth of marketing experience in senior positions at Sky and Vodafone, which provided pivotal experience in reaching out to parents. With two school-age children of her own, she is passionate about ensuring children can enjoy the internet safely.
Professor Arthur Chapman
University College London, Professor of History Education
Professor Arthur Chapman, FRHistS, FHA, EdD, MPhil, MA (Cantab.), PGCE, is Professor of History Education and Head of Department, Curriculum Pedagogy and Assessment at IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society, and coordinator of IOE’s History in Education Special Interest Group. Professor Chapman is an editor of several academic journals and a frequent contributor to global history education discourse. Outside History education, Arthur is a founder member and co-lead of IOE’s Curriculum and Subject Specialism Research Group and has worked as a member of both the research and teaching teams in the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education. In 2018-20 he co-led curriculum research and development for ODHIRH/OSCE and UNESCO on Addressing Antisemitism Through Education.
Gareth Conyard
Teacher Development Trust (TDT), CEO
Gareth Conyard is CEO of the TDT. Between 2003-2022, Gareth worked at the Department for Education on a range of policies from early years to higher education. Most recently, he led the development and delivery of the Early Career Framework and reformed National Professional Qualifications. He also spent two years as an Education Adviser at the Department of International Development, focusing on girls’ education and multilateral investment.
Smita Jamdar
Shakespeare Martineau, Head of Education
Smita Jamdar is Partner and Head of Education at law firm Shakespeare Martineau. She is a recognised leader in her field, specialising in constitutional, governance and regulatory advice that helps educational institutions thrive in a rapidly changing landscape. She has helped institutions to innovate and develop, to widen their reach, build institutional resilience, and deliver the best outcomes for students and other stakeholders. Smita has also been recognised in the Legal 500 as a leading individual in education.
Chris Morris
Full Fact, CEO
Chris is an award-winning journalist and CEO of Full Fact. Prior to joining Full Fact in October 2023, Chris was the BBC’s first dedicated fact-checker on air and online, pioneering fact-checking on mainstream outlets through his development and leadership of BBC Reality Check.
Ndidi Okezie
UK Youth, former CEO
Ndidi was the CEO of UK Youth, a leading national charity with a mission to unlock the power of youth work for 10 million more young people. Prior to joining UK Youth, Ndidi’s 20-year career spans across the education, charity, and corporate sectors. Her former roles include teacher, school leader, executive director of the national charity Teach First and vice-president at Pearson PLC. Ndidi currently is a non-executive director on the boards of The Southbank Centre, Teach for All, and Sky’s Diversity Council.
Professor Dame Alison Peacock
Chartered College of Teaching, CEO
Professor Dame Alison Peacock is CEO of the Chartered College of Teaching. Prior to becoming CEO of the Chartered College of Teaching, Professor Dame Alison Peacock was Executive Headteacher of The Wroxham School in Hertfordshire. Her career to date has spanned primary, secondary and advisory roles. In 2018, she became an Honorary Fellow of Queen’s College, Cambridge, one of the first ever female Fellows admitted. She is also a Visiting Professor of both the University of Hertfordshire and Glyndwr University.
Melanie Renowden
NIOT, CEO
Melanie is the Chief Executive Officer of the NIoT. She has spent 25 years working in education, most recently as executive director of Star Institute, the learning and development centre for Star Academies. Her expertise is in education policy and its implementation, professional development and governance.
Rachel Sylvester
The Times, Columnist, Chair of Times Education Commission
Rachel Sylvester is a political columnist at The Times. She started writing about politics in 1996 and was a lobby correspondent on The Daily Telegraph before becoming political editor of The Independent on Sunday. She joined The Times in 2008 and has since chaired both the Times Education Commission and the Times Health Commission. Rachel is currently chairing The Times Crime and Justice Commission which aims to address the most urgent issues facing the police, prisons, courts and victims of crime.
Sara Sinaguglia
Oak Academy, AVP Teaching and Learning
Sara Sinaguglia is an Assistant Vice-Principal of Teaching and Learning. She has provided the Commission with the invaluable perspective of a frontline teacher, and won a silver award in 2019 for Teacher of the Year in a Secondary School at the Pearson National Teaching Awards. She holds an MA in Applied Educational Leadership from the UCL IoE Centre for Educational Leadership and is a graduate of the Beacon School programme from the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education.
Advisory Board
The Commission’s Advisory Board comprises Pears Foundation grantees who have provided relevant expertise to the Commission across a wide variety of sectors and disciplines. They have been invaluable in providing feedback, advice and counsel throughout each phase of the Commission.
Ali Amla, Solutions Not Sides
Julie Bentley, Samaritans
Rozina Breen, Bureau of Investigative Journalists
Sharon Booth, Solutions Not Sides
Linda Cowie, The Linking Network
Jessica Deighton, Anna Freud
Professor Stuart Foster, UCL Centre for Holocaust Education
Meg Henry, The Linking Network
Dr Carol Homden CBE, Coram
Dilwar Hussain MBE, New Horizons in British Islam
Callum Hood, Centre for Countering Digital Hate
Sinead McBréarty, Education Support
Dr Jacqueline Phillips Owen, South London and the Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust
Dr Andy Pearce, UCL Centre for Holocaust Education
Catherine Roche, Place2Be
Mark Rusling, National Holocaust Centre and Museum
Michael Samuel MBE, Full Fact
Danny Stone MBE, Antisemitism Policy Trust
Becca Weighell, Fair Education Alliance
Dr Daniel Wehrenfennig, The Center for International Experiential Learning
Information accessed on social media appears to be influencing young people’s world views. 36% of young people said they have changed their opinions or beliefs about a mainstream news story based on information they find on social media.
Foreword
Concern and debate about the impact of online misinformation and disinformation on both individual lives and public discourse are widespread, and rightly so. However, until now, there has been limited data – beyond the concerns voiced by individual educators, and parents, – on how this crisis is manifesting in schools. We were deeply concerned by the growing prevalence of these issues and the lack of support or guidance available to schools on addressing them.
It was against this backdrop that the concept of the Commission into Countering Online Conspiracies in Schools emerged, bringing together fourteen expert Commissioners from across the education, youth, media, legal and academic sectors, supported by an advisory board of civil society leaders. The Commission has sought to shine a much-needed light on the ways in which online conspiracy theories, misinformation, and disinformation are manifesting in the lives of young people.
In the months since the launch of the Commission, this subject has become even more pressing. Evidence has accumulated about the very real and worrying impact that online misinformation is having in our civic life, our schools and on public order.
Over the past nine months we have spoken to teachers, wider school staff, parents and, critically, to young people themselves to better understand their experiences of online misinformation, disinformation and conspiracies. The story we have uncovered is clear – and it is deeply concerning. This report paints an often-bleak portrait of the scale of the challenge that school communities face in addressing conspiracy belief, misinformation and disinformation amongst young people.
There is a real sense in our findings that this problem is best tackled, at least in part, by schools. This approach is supported by both school leaders and staff. However, a clear message emerges that teachers and the wider school workforce need more support if their work in this area is to be successful. Our hope is that the findings of this report will make a significant contribution to how schools, trusts and the wider education sector respond to this pressing issue.
We would like to thank everyone who has given their time and expertise to the Commission so far.
There is so much more work to do. We very much hope that others will join us.
Sir Mufti Hamid Patel
CEO of Star Academies
Sir Trevor Pears CMG
Executive Chair of the Pears Foundation
Acknowledgements
The Commission into Countering Online Conspiracy in Schools would not have been possible without the generous contributions of a wide range of people and organisations who were willing to share their time, expertise and experiences.
We would like to start by thanking all of the school staff, parents and young people who shared their opinions, thoughts and experiences with us throughout this research. You are the reason the Commission exists, and we hope it will lead to positive changes.
This Commission was co-chaired Sir Hamid Patel and Sir Trevor Pears and led by a team of expert commissioners. Their curiosity, expertise, passion for education, and willingness to grapple with complexity have driven the work forward and ensured that the needs of young people and those who educate and raise them were central throughout.
The Commission was facilitated by Public First, and we would particularly like to thank Dr. Sally Burtonshaw, Ed Dorrell and Pete Whitehead who so ably led the work, along with their colleagues Seb Wride, Jules Walkden, Dr. Denise Baron and Will Yates. Their policy and research expertise, combined with their deep understanding of, and commitment to, school staff and leaders has been the driving force behind the Commission’s work.
The funding (and indeed the original idea) for the Commission was provided by Pears Foundation, and we are grateful to its trustees and staff for their engagement and input, in particular Executive Chair Sir Trevor Pears and Director Amy Braier who sat as commissioners. In establishing the Commission, Pears Foundation’s aim was to explore the issue and produce something that would be of use to schools. They have, at all times, respected the independence of the commissioners and the research findings.
The Commission also benefited significantly from the expertise of an Advisory Board, drawn from Pears Foundation’s grantees, consisting of civil society leaders with expertise across a range of relevant fields, who gave up their time to help initiate the research and scrutinise and develop the findings and recommendations.
We would also like to thank all the expert witnesses whose perspectives added so much to the Commission and whose work is so vital to our understanding of online conspiracy.
About Pears Foundation
Pears Foundation is an independent family foundation that invests over £20 million each year in a wide range of charitable organisations and causes. The Foundation is known for its relational approach, building long-term relationships with grantees and giving unrestricted funding and support beyond grants. Pears Foundation’s work is broad-ranging, spanning education, mental health, poverty alleviation, social action, civic engagement, social cohesion and the intersection between these issues. The Pears family has given more than £450m to charitable causes since the Foundation was established.