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.

Estates Manager - John Bailey

John is a fairly new appointment to the Trust, having taken up his role in September 2023. 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.

Attendance and Safeguarding Officer - Nigel Shaddick

Nigel joined us last year as Attendance Officer and has overseen a 1% increase in our attendance across the schools. He is vastly experienced and currently sits on a DfE expert panel and is part of the Ipswich Opportunity Area attendance group. In the last year he worked with the CEO and Designated Safeguarding Lead to pilot in-house trust ‘Safeguarding Deep Dives.’ This year these have been provided for all schools as Nigel’s remit extended into safeguarding in addition to attendance. 

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

Gemma has a range of organisational experience that has begun to compliment 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 two days a week in addition to her role at the school and has supported with the implementation of our new online HR system and has also visited 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.