Marius Frank is Head of Education at Microlink PC UK Ltd, a company committed to opening up pathways of opportunity from the classroom to the boardroom for any child or young person with any disability, protected characteristics or collisions of need.
Marius was strategic lead for national school improvement programmes and E-learning development at Achievement for All. Achievement for All was a leading international children’s charity devoted to equity in education, supporting education settings to dismantle barriers to learning, whatever the challenges faced young people and their families. Achievement for All worked with over five thousand education settings in England during his tenure.
After a stellar career as a teacher and middle leader in challenging secondary schools in England, Marius became Headteacher of Bedminster Down School (and the first BAME Secondary Headteacher in Bristol). From being named in the bottom 200 performing Secondary Schools in the country in March 2000, Marius led the school to a remarkable transformation, trebling performance outcomes in a decade in charge despite low community expectations. In fact, Bedminster Down was the only Bristol Secondary School in challenging circumstances not to be academised or closed!
In 2010, Marius became CEO of ASDAN Education, an international Awarding Organisation, offering a variety of European Qualification Framework Level 1 to Level 6 qualifications in vocational and personal development, curriculum development and curriculum innovation NGO (winning Human Resource Magazine’s Most Person-Centred CEO of the Year award in 2011), before eventually joining Achievement for All in 2013.
Marius has been involved in the strategic leadership and delivery of a number of high-profile government-funded projects: the first aimed to reduce the impact and incidence of bullying on children with SEND. 1,500 schools received face-to-face training, with 96% of all attendees rating the event as good or outstanding, making them more confident to deal with complex and sensitive incidents. The extensive bank of supporting resources was presented in an innovative web-based way, encouraging individual or group exploration and evaluation to support professional development activity. The project (conducted in partnership with ABA) was given an internal DfE (Department for Education) grade 1 rating for delivery.
From 2015, Marius led a two-year DfE/MoJ contract aimed at securing better outcomes for young people with Special Education Needs and Disabilities in the Youth Justice System. A series of national workshops, connected 400 professionals from 100+ Youth Offending Teams and built an online community of practice serving over 1,800 front line professionals. The contract was extended for another year which took the programme into the secure estate to develop a quality assurance framework for Local Area Partnerships across the country driving continuous service improvement. The Youth Justice SEND Quality Mark/Quality Lead moniker has now been earned by nearly 60 Teams in England, playing a significant role in securing effective working partnerships between YOTs and other statutory Children’s Services. Marius is now turning the amassed knowledge into a framework that identifies and enables Child First Partnership Practice, and advises DfE, MoJ and HMPI .
Over the last two years, as Head of Education at Microlink, Marius worked with the DfE and nasen (the Special Education Needs charity) to lead in the creation and delivery of an Assistive Technologies Pilot programme, aimed at transforming mainstream use of technologies to dismantle barriers to progress and achievement. Over 450 schools have been involved in the transformative programme.
Microlink have gone on to develop the programme still further. With the generous sponsorship of HSBC Bank, another 300+ schools are being given free access to the comprehensive coaching and professional development programme and associated materials and resources. We call it Be ThAT Teacher .
Marius was a guest speaker at ATIA 2023 in Florida last year (one of the largest international Assistive Technologies conferences), where he presented a unifying framework using the social model of disability to include children disabled by circumstance.
Marius is also a specialist in emotion wellbeing and mental health (his first degree was in Brain Sciences), supporting schools, PRUs and Youth Offending Teams move from trauma-aware to trauma-informed to trauma-transformed practice. This programme has grown rapidly and Microlink launched Raising Attainment with Wellbeing in September 2022 , a transformational programme helping schools to place wellbeing at the heart of their community. Over 400 schools have embarked on the journey, with some incredible evidence-based results.
He has also worked on international EU-funded projects with colleagues in Italy, Romania, Greece, Spain securing better outcomes for affected by migration.
