Laura Hammond
Laura Hammond connects education coverage to the realities of everyday life, using local stories and sector knowledge to show how decisions about schools, universities and public services affect people directly. She is a senior journalist and sub editor at the BBC, working across regional news and education, with a portfolio that spans breaking local stories and in-depth policy reporting. Her background in specialist coverage of education, childcare, youth work and health policy means she treats classrooms, campuses and youth services as part of a wider social system rather than isolated beats.
Higher education and campus culture
In her higher education work, Hammond focuses on the pressures facing university institutions and the cultural spaces they maintain.
Her coverage of a campaign to save a university theatre backed by actors Theo James and Ruth Wilson shows how she uses prominent alumni and creative figures to illuminate decisions that might otherwise look like routine estate management. She frames the story around what the loss of a theatre means for current students, future performers and the pipeline of creative talent coming through higher education, grounding abstract concerns about funding and space in the experience of people who study and work there.
When she writes about universities, she gives as much weight to campus culture and student opportunity as to formal teaching, treating arts facilities and extracurricular spaces as part of the educational offer rather than a peripheral concern.
Local events, transport and public services
Hammond’s regional reporting often shows how industrial disputes and service decisions play out around major local events.
In her piece on strikes halting weekend trams during Nottingham’s historic Goose Fair, she sets out clearly that no trams will run for two weekends because of the industrial action, spelling out the direct consequences for people travelling to and from the fair. The focus stays on practical detail - which services are affected, when disruption will occur and how a longstanding community event will cope - rather than on process alone. This approach recurs in her coverage of local public services: she treats transport, policing and health provision as infrastructure that underpins communal life, and she writes about changes to that infrastructure in terms of who will feel them and how.
Education, childcare and youth services
Before joining the BBC, Hammond worked as a senior reporter and news editor covering the education, childcare and youth work sectors, writing news, features and analysis for specialist publications in those fields. She closely tracked government policy affecting education, childcare and health and social care, following how new legislation and guidance would alter the landscape for schools, early-years providers and youth organisations. In that work she developed contacts among charity chief executives and government ministers, giving her a direct line into both frontline services and policymaking circles.
That experience carries through into her current education reporting, which is comfortable with detail on funding mechanisms, regulatory changes and inspection regimes, but still rooted in the day-to-day realities of children, families and practitioners.
Her earlier roles included writing for multiple specialist websites that covered the childcare and health and social care sectors, further deepening her familiarity with the overlap between education, welfare and healthcare.
She has produced in-depth pieces on education and NHS policies, showing an interest in how schooling and health provision interact, for example in mental health support, special educational needs and services for vulnerable young people. This combination of sector experience and policy literacy distinguishes her from a generic education reporter: she understands how decisions taken in one part of the system knock on to others, and she reflects that in stories that cross boundaries between schools, health services and social care.
Regional news and general assignment reporting
At the BBC’s regional operation, Hammond’s remit extends beyond education into general assignment news. Her portfolio includes police appeals and public-safety stories alongside positive people pieces, giving her regular access to the voices of local residents, community leaders and frontline staff.
That breadth means she is used to moving quickly from hard news to more reflective features, and it reinforces a style that keeps policy and institutional decisions grounded in the lives of individuals and neighbourhoods.
Even when the subject is national policy or a university campaign, her reporting tends to return to what changes mean for a specific place, event or group of people, rather than treating them as abstract developments. The result is coverage that combines the rigour of a specialist with the clarity and accessibility expected from regional news.
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Ajit Niranjan
Ajit Niranjan links climate science, policy and hard numbers to how extreme weather and environmental damage disrupt daily life, public services and industry. He is European environment correspondent at the Guardian. His beat includes violent heat, pollution, wildfires, air quality, EU green policy, corporate responsibility, energy transition, clean home heating, public health and long-term risks to landscapes and ecosystems. He examines how lobbying, supply chains and regulation shape environmental harm, from data centres and fish farms to fossil fuel industries. His reporting covers schools, hospitals, transport, homes and infrastructure as climate stress points. He previously reported on climate for DW News. He combines data, scientific research, eyewitness accounts and on-the-ground reporting. He also produces explainers, dossiers, factsheets and Q&As that translate complex technical debates into clear, precise language.
Albert Tait
Albert Tait is Education Editor at The Telegraph, leading coverage of schools and universities as institutions whose decisions have direct consequences for staff and students. He focuses on how regulators, senior leaders and governing bodies respond when safety, standards or integrity are under scrutiny, and how those responses affect classrooms and lecture halls. His work links school inspections and teacher safety to regulatory frameworks and conditions on the ground, and he reports on incidents such as knife attacks and “Code Red” alerts with attention to immediate impact and emergency protocols. He produces multi-part investigations into university governance, including extensive reporting on Cambridge’s handling of Jason Arday’s appointment and resignation. He also covers curriculum debates such as changes in how scientists view evolution and inheritance. He began at The Telegraph as a news reporter and previously covered community news at a local paper.
Beth Kennedy
Beth Kennedy is editor at The PIE News and stands out for reporting on how UK policy, institutional strategy and new delivery models reshape international education. Her beat covers UK study visa rules, international student flows, Home Office and UCAS data, alternative study pathways, language schools, and mergers and acquisitions across the sector. She reports on the practical effects of visa changes, scholarship schemes, online and transnational education, school closures, job losses and sector consolidation. Her work is direct and data-led, with clear explanations of complex systems and a focus on what policy and market shifts mean for universities, language schools and private training organisations. She has over a decade in specialist media, including years reporting for primary healthcare professionals before joining The PIE in 2024.
Callum Clark
Callum Clark is a multimedia journalist at STV News who covers education through the lens of university finances, restructuring and their impact on students, staff and local services. He focuses on stories where cost‑saving plans, job losses and service closures reshape community life, such as Dundee University’s nursery and botanic garden closures, and sets those decisions within wider restructuring efforts. His reporting is direct and fact driven, built on official documents, statements and precise figures that show both the scale of savings targets and monthly losses, and the number of posts at risk. Clark’s background in local news and public service coverage, including mental health service reforms and redundancy schemes, shapes a methodical style that tracks formal processes while keeping the lived experience of workers, families and service users in view.