Paul Clarke was born in Coventry, Warwickshire. He was educated at John F.Kennedy School in Hemel Hempstead, and went on to study at the Universities of London (B.A.), Leeds (PGCE), Lancaster (M.A) and Manchester (Ph.D).
He is married to Eithne, who is a midwife, and has four children, Alice, Imogen, Isaac and Hannah.
Paul currently works as a Senior Lecturer at Leeds Metropolitan University (LMU) and he is an associate of the International School Effectiveness and Improvement Centre, at the University of London Institute of Education.
His professional work is both research and teaching based. He is involved at a national and international level on school improvement initiatives, and is researching into the theme of organisational sustainability. This work is informed from an involvement in a number of development projects focused on the "future of schools". This work draws upon new designs for schools arising from the possibility of new technology, an increasing interest internationally in alternative school models, and theory on emergent systems and change.
Paul has worked, researched and published extensively on teacher empowerment, school reform, improvement and sustainability in local, regional, national and international school improvement agencies. He is the author of three books. His new book "Learning Schools, Learning Systems" comes out in Spring 2000 (Cassell School Development Series) is based on a long term project which is developing teaching and learning support networks.
Paul is currently planing the development of the Future Schools Forum which acts as a "think tank" for redesigning schools for the times we live in, rather than the world that we have left behind, making better use of "know how", rather than just "knowledge".
Paul lives in Todmorden Lancashire where he spends too much time in front of computers writing, when not doing that he can be found climbing on the local rock faces, sitting in the pub, supporting Coventry City FC, running (chasing his dog) and playing tennis.