Facilitators



Fairfield Associates

Carolyn Medlin

Director, Fairfield Associates Limited

Carolyn works as an inspector, practitioner and freelance consultant across the Further Education and Skills sector. She is actively involved in teaching, consultancy, research and resource development. Following a role as Head of Quality Improvement and Curriculum Development for a large ACL provider, Carolyn’s freelance work focuses on teaching and learning, and helping to develop practitioners’ skills in areas such as:

  • outstanding teaching, learning and assessment
  • observing learning
  • short notice inspection planning
  • quality improvement, including writing judgement-rich evaluative self-assessment reports and developing learner-centred continuous quality improvement processes

100% of all organisations Carolyn has worked extensively with have improved at least one grade following an Ofsted inspection.

Carolyn also continues to work as a tutor in work-based learning, consistently helping her learners to achieve highly successful outcomes.





Ian Smith

Senior Her Majesty's Inspector, Ofsted

Ian Smith joined Ofsted as Her Majesty’s Inspector in 2007, from a previous inspectorate, where he managed a national quality improvement initiative. He is a qualified teacher in further education, has a degree level management qualification and postgraduate diploma in inspection. Prior to becoming an inspector, Ian held senior roles in GFE colleges and has additional wide experience in the management of work-based learning, employability training and adult learning. Ian is currently one of two Further Education and Skills Senior Her Majesty’s Inspectors assigned to the Ofsted West Midlands region. He manages a team of Her Majesty’s Inspectors in Further Education and Skills. He has been the operational lead for two Ofsted contracted inspection service providers.