Margaret Cashin has a BA in Humanities and an MA in Educational Management. She has taught on
a range of courses from Level 1 to an MA in Education. She has been in Post 16 education for over
14 years. She had started as a lecturer in an FE college, rising to Head of the School of
Administration, Business and Information Technology. Margaret became the Head of Quality across
all three sites and helped in the preparation for Ofsted inspection.
During this period in an FE college, the department was inspected and Margaret was invited to apply
to become a part time Ofsted Inspector. This led to a period of time as a self employed consultant
working with various government bodies including NCVQ who were involved with monitoring NVQs
across the UK. The project included carrying out an audit across the United Kingdom of the delivery,
assessment and quality of NVQs. The report led to major changes in the delivery of NVQs.
Margaret was also the Chief Examiner for the General Principals of Education for the Joint Examining
Board Teacher’s Diploma courses. This involved writing the exam papers, marking scripts and
moderating other examiners. External verifier visits were also carried out across the country.
Margaret was employed by Capita Education Services to write a set of quality procedures for post 16
institutions and then to implement the procedures. This then led to 15 years working as an
education consultant covering Management Information Systems, preparation for audit and Ofsted
Inspections. This was in educational institutions across England, Scotland and Wales. During this
time Margaret was released by Capita for several weeks every year to continue with her inspection
work.
As part of the work for Capita Margaret was sent as a part-time consultant to the University of West
London to help manage their funding and data statistical returns and also with their quality
processes. Margaret was offered and accepted a permanent post. Margaret helped the University
gain an ‘Outstanding’ Ofsted inspection grade.
After 5 years Margaret left the University and went to work for Welcome Skills in the role of funding
and data manager and managing quality across the company.