PRECI 2024

BARRY CARPENTER OBE CBE

Barry Carpenter is the UK’s first Professor in Mental Health in Education, a Chair created for him at Oxford Brookes University. He is Honorary Professor at universities in the UK, Ireland, Germany and Australia. He has been a Fellow of the University of Oxford. In July 2020 he was awarded the Distinguished Fellowship of the Chartered College of Teaching, for his leadership of the Education field during the pandemic. Barry is co-founder of the UK National Forum for Neuroscience in Education.

He has been awarded an OBE and CBE by the late Queen for services to children with Special Needs. In 2022 , he was made Doctor of Letters ( D.Litt.) in recognition of his lifetime achievements in Education.

In a career spanning more than 40 years, Barry has held the leadership positions of Headteacher, Principal, Academic Director, Chief Executive, and Director of the Centre for Special Education at Westminster College, Oxford. In 2009, he was appointed by the Secretary of State for Education as Director of the Children with Complex Learning Difficulties and Disabilities Research Project.

He is the author of over 200 articles and many texts on a range of learning disability/special needs topics.) He co-authored two books on children with FASD, building on his post doctoral research in this area. Additionally, his book, "Engaging Learners with Complex Needs" (Routledge), which outlined his research around Engagement as Pedagogy, has been further developed by the UK Department for Education as the model for statutory summative assessment, with legislation to enshrine this enacted in 2021.

Barry lectures nationally and internationally. In recent years this has included China, Japan, Dubai, Australia, New Zealand, USA, Hong Kong and Germany. He is the co-founder of the National Forum for Neuroscience in Education. For the Mental Health Foundation, he Chaired the National Inquiry into the Mental Health of Young People with Learning Disabilities. He Chaired the National Forum on Girls and Autism, which led to the publication in 2019 of his new, critically acclaimed, co-authored book on this subject.

Barry has a lifelong passion for the field of Early Childhood Intervention. He has served on the Organising Committee for the International Society for Early Intervention for over 25 years.

He serves on the Board of the Association of Child and Adolescent Mental Health, and several other Boards related to Education and Healthcare. He is Patron of the ADHD Foundation.

Barry has 3 children – one a School Principal, one a Senior Occupational Therapist and a daughter with Down’s Syndrome, who now has a home of her own, and published her first book in 2017.