Chief Executive Officer - Daniel Jones

Daniel has a National Professional Qualification for Executive Leadership and was the founding CEO overseeing the growth of the Trust from two to eight schools. Previously, he taught in three Inner City London Boroughs and has held leadership positions including headteacher in three Suffolk schools.

Daniel was instrumental in Springfield Juniors being awarded the National Pupil Premium Award (2017) and has led training and worked strategically with numerous schools nationally on this subject. In January 2018, Daniel visited Singapore as part of the British Council and Singapore Ministry of Education in ‘Building Educational Bridges’ project. In 2020, Daniel made a series of films for Discovery Education and the National Association of Headteachers focused on the challenge of closing the attainment gap.

Chief Financial Officer - Tamara Patel

Tammy is a Chartered Management Accountant, and took up the CFO position in the Autumn of 2023, having previously been our Finance Manager. Tammy oversees our financial strategy and accounting and leads the Finance Team who work to support the Headteachers and schools with their budgeting.

In recent times, Tammy has overseen the appointment of a new catering provider which improved the quality of the food for pupils and reduced the cost of meals to parents.

Head of School Improvement - Dr Andrea Hall

Andrea is passionate about school improvement and has undertaken a variety of Headship roles.

Since joining the Trust, Andrea has added capacity to our school improvement function and now leads this work across the Trust for 3 days per week. She recently achieved her doctorate and believes in developing and empowering others to build capacity and achieve success.

Head of Operations - John Bailey

John is still fairly new appointment to the Trust, having taken up a role in September 2023 as an Estates Manager. In July 2024, John was appointed as our Head of Operations. He brings considerable experience to this role, with over 30 years’ experience of corporate real estate operations having managed large and diverse national and international teams.  

Since our inception as a Trust we have secured over 1.4 million pounds external funding for eight projects to improve the premises at our schools. John is focused on progressing our premises maintenance and development strategy and ensuring we meet our statutory compliance obligations efficiently.  

IT Development and Data Officer - Kara Welsford

Kara works with leaders and headteachers to guide the Trust and schools’ IT Development and is also our Data Protection Officer. Kara works for the Trust for two days a week in addition to working at Whitehouse Community Primary.

In the last academic year Kara secured over £180,000 external funding to improve IT infrastructure at 3 of our schools and also supported two schools to re-tender for external IT support to improve their provision.

Trust SEND Lead - Samantha Porter

Samantha is the SENDCo and Deputy Head at Whitehouse Community Primary School, where she has worked for 30 years. She led Whitehouse’s designation as Centre of Excellence for Inclusion. The report stated that, ‘Whitehouse Community Primary School is a particularly outstanding example of a school committed to meet the needs of its pupils and is outstanding in its commitment to and implementation of inclusive practice.’ Samantha works with SENDCos across our schools, leads our SENDCos’ collaborative group and conducts SEND reviews.

Assistant to the CEO and Central Team - Gemma Dempsey-Gray

Gemma has a range of organisational experience that compliments the Central Team having worked in schools. Gemma was also a finance director of a construction business and then opened a café in Woodbridge.  

Payroll & Admin Assistant - Debbie Whight

Debbie has extensive experience in HR, having fulfilled this role at Whitehouse for over 10 years. She works for the Trust for four days a week. Debbie has supported us with the implementation of our new online HR system and also visits schools to support them with record keeping. 

Trust Finance Lead – Charlotte Hart

Charlotte started as Trust Finance Lead in January 2024. She has joined us from the world of NHS finance but also brings a wealth of experience in data analysis and process improvement. Whilst being finance focused, she never forgets that everything we do is to provide the best we can for the young people in our schools.

Finance Assistant - Sarah Deeks 

A member of the Finance team, Sarah brings experience of both office-based roles for the local authority as well as a number of years working as a primary school teacher. Her schools-based experience affords a good understanding of the issues that matter to school staff and of the education sector in general. Sarah enjoys regularly liaising with school office staff and working as part of a motivated team to carry out finance-related tasks.

Finance Assistant - Anita Rawling

With significant experience of working in the banking sector, Anita also brings many years of experience of working as part of a school office team, specialising in finance. When the central finance team was initially established, Anita's school finance knowledge was invaluable in implementing a smooth transition to centralising finance functions within the Trust.

Finance Assistant - Laura Stanford 

Laura worked in banking for 15 years before bringing her finance expertise to the Trust during the covid pandemic. Laura has been able to take on her role and extra tasks to streamline our processes and make our finance team more efficient. Laura enjoys a challenge in the workplace and is fantastic at seeking solutions that are outside the box.  

Premises Manager - Julie Brown 

With a history of working in banking, Julie has worked in a school for 18 years. Julie worked her way up from counting dinner money to being the school’s Business Manager. Julie has a good knowledge of school’s finance and premises management and has overseen some major building projects in schools. Julie’s aim is to ensure that all schools in the Trust have effective processes for managing their premises.