Dr Ceri Daniels
Director of School of Education

Appointed Director in July 2022 after a short period in the interim role - Ceri co-ordinated the School of Education’s move from the historic, suburban IM Marsh site, to our brand new building in the city centre of Liverpool. Ceri is proud to lead the School of Education in LJMU alongside our talented and committed academic, professional support and School leadership teams. As Director, Ceri is responsible for overall academic leadership, operational management and strategic development of the School. She leads an ambitious, vibrant community, committed to Social Justice and working in partnership with our students, researchers and stakeholders to harness the transformational power of education in local, national and international contexts.

Ceri joined LJMU in April 2017 to lead the suite of Education Studies programmes in the School of Education. Becoming acting Head of Education and Early Childhood in 2018, she was then appointed Head of Professional Learning and Enterprise within the School in late 2019. In this role, Ceri worked with colleagues and a range of partners to grow our international collaborative programmes across sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and also began development of the School's professional learning offers for practitioners; including aspiring and senior leadership development and the proposal and early partnerships to develop our sector-leading Centre for Educational Leadership.

Prior to this, Ceri spent ten years at the University of Huddersfield - involved in a number of undergraduate and postgraduate education courses. She taught across a range of topics and disciplines including: social policy, sociology, safeguarding, multi-disciplinary working, child and adolescent well-being, research methods, and leadership and management in education and children's services. In addition, she was the principal lead for workforce development with local authorities, and also established and led an MA in Leadership in Education and Public Service.

In partnership with colleagues, Ceri developed education-related CPD provision and was a key member of a pioneering team delivering external leadership development programmes across children's services in Yorkshire and the Humber. For fifteen years before this, Ceri worked in management roles in children and young people’s services in local authorities and the charitable sector.

Ceri studied at Liverpool University for her BA (Hons) and attained an MBA from LJMU Business School: awarded the Executive MBA prize by the Chartered Management Institute.

Ceri's PhD - 'Surfing the Edge of Chaos': Professional Identity Constructs of Senior Children's Services Leaders in the Context of the Agency-Structure Nexus, was concerned with the identity and emotion work of Directors of Children's Services in the UK. Her current research interests include identity, leadership and emotion work. Ceri also previously explored the educational experiences of young parents, voice of the child and the complexities of child safeguarding policy and practice in her research.

Ceri is Deputy Chair of LJMU's Centre for Educational Leadership and a fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Degrees

University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom, PhD
Liverpool Business School, LJMU, United Kingdom, MBA
University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom, PGCert Higher Education
University of Liverpool, United Kingdom, BA (Hons) Sociology & American Studies