My friend Mary Jane Drummond, who has died aged 83, was headteacher of an infant school before joining the Institute of Education in Cambridge (now the University of Cambridge faculty of education). There she contributed as a co-author to a number of significant research projects between 1993 and 2014 that reflected her beliefs – including Assessing Children’s Learning, Positive Alternatives to Exclusion, Learning Without Limits and What Matters to Children.
Each of these asked what a world would look like for children that began by exploring what mattered to them – and went on to influence how teachers viewed their work. Fiercely intellectual and down to earth, Mary Jane was an innovative thinker and a generous collaborator.
