THAMES LEARNING TRUST - Key Persons

Andy Suddons had a 35- year career in Human Resources working for ICI, CHEP & ABF. During this time, as well as the UK, Andy worked and lived in The Netherlands, USA & Belgium. Since 2016 Andy has worked on a variety of projects as an Interim HR Consultant. Andy served as a Governor for a primary school in Ascot & has volunteered to support local secondary schools. Andy has 2 grown up daughters- one of whom lives in Hampshire working for Portsmouth City Council and one is living in South Africa making wine. Andy studied Organisational Behaviour at Salford University.

Job Titles:

• Finance Director
• Director of Finance for the Trust

Annal Nayyar is the Director of Finance for the Trust. He is a qualified CIPFA accountant. His background is in local authority finance, both revenue and capital, and he has had a particular focus on education and schools. This has involved considerable experience of project management, including large capital schemes, PFI, opening free schools and academy conversions as well as securing school sponsorships. Annal therefore brings a holistic strategic and operational understanding of education and schools finance, combined with strong management and analytical skills.

Bob spent 38 years in the Police Force and prior to retiring was Chief Inspector with British Transport Police. On retiring, he returned to British Transport police for 7 years as their well-being manager with responsibility for health and safety and occupational health. He has been a governor for 17 years and has held the following positions: -

Job Titles:

• Director of Education
• Director of Education ( Primary )

Catherine Morley is Director of Education (Primary) for Thames Learning Trust. She has been a Headteacher and Executive Headteacher across several schools. A passionate AST (Advanced Skills Teacher), from early in her career Catherine has provided extensive school improvement support in many schools. Always ensuring children remain at the heart of all decisions, she has led an outstanding teaching school and worked for over ten years as a National Leader of Education.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Education Board
• Principal at Baylis Court School

Christine MacInnes is Principal at Baylis Court School. Before joining Baylis Court she gained extensive experience in school leadership in a range of maintained schools as a senior leader and co-headteacher. Christine enjoys the work involved in school improvement. She has demonstrated a career-long passion for making a difference to the lives of young people, working in a range of diverse, comprehensive schools in London, Lancashire and Greater Manchester. Christine's educational philosophy is firmly centred on personalised, lifelong learning and securing inclusion. She is completely committed to ensuring that the community at Baylis Court work collaboratively to ensure that all students have a positive experience and to support all to achieve success.

After serving as the Chief Executive Officer [CEO] for Baylis Court Trust for five years, I moved to working part-time as a freelance educational leadership consultant. Prior to my role as CEO, I was head teacher of Baylis Court School for two years. This was my second headship as I served for seven years as headteacher at a large comprehensive school in Reading, where we moved the school from inadequate to good. I became a National Leader of Education in 2015, and have worked with many schools since then, offering support with their journey to raise standards for disadvantaged learners. In 2015, I worked as part of the DFE Data Management Review Group, which was part of the DFE review of teacher workload, that was set up in response to the evidence collected by The Workload Challenge. In 2019, I became a Founding Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching.

I am keen on learning and developing, and as a former student of Baylis Court wanting to become a parent Trustee here is an intended choice as I am passionate about giving back to the school that gave me so much. My daughter attends Baylis as is currently in Year 9. My eldest also attended Baylis and is now in her final year at University. I work in a local primary school as an Office Manager. I am a creative person at heart who thoroughly enjoys baking and cake decorating and I have a keen interest in interior designing. I also love to travel to different parts of the world.

Jon Reekie retired from a long career in banking in the late 1970's. He has been a Governor of Baylis Court School and Herschel Grammar School since 1989 where he chaired the Finance Committee and was Vice-Chair. He worked for the Medical Research Council in London in 1993. In 1995 he was appointed Business Manager at Herschel Grammar School until retiring from the post in 2009. During all of this time, he remained a Governor and Chair at Baylis Court School and in recent years took the school to Academy status and, in 2015, to Multi Academy status and chairs the Trust Board. After his retirement, he has been asked to be a member of governing bodies in Slough where there has been a need to strengthen governance. Among those have been Willow Primary School and James Elliman Academy, both of which he is no longer a governor of. Jon is also a member of the Board of Slough and East Berkshire Multi Academy Trust where he chairs the Trust Finance Committee. He also chairs the governing body at Wexham Court Primary School. Jon is a member of the Slough School's Forum which is a body that deals with school finance for all schools in Slough. Outside of education, Jon is a Trustee of Maidenhead Waterways Regeneration Group. He now has three grandsons and a step granddaughter and enjoys relaxing holidays in his caravan and cruises to various oversea countries.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Education Board
• Ashford Hill Primary School

Kirsty is delighted to have been appointed as the Principal of Ashford Hill Primary School. Previously, she has had a successful career in senior leadership within the retail and health care sectors. As she started my own family, she decided that it was time to follow her dream and become a teacher. Coming from a family of teachers and spending the majority of her summer holidays as a child setting up classrooms, she understood the hard work, but privilege that it would be to work with young people and inspire them in their learning for years to come. She has taught across all year groups within primary school and believes that each and every year group has their own special qualities which make them unique and fascinating to teach. Academically, the teaching of maths is Kirsty's passion. She has travelled to Shanghai with the Department of Education to work on their maths mastery research project and has worked as a professional development and school improvement lead for both the National College of Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics and the Local Authority. She believes that these opportunities have allowed her to observe and develop mathematics across the country with a talented team focused on improving outcomes for all children. A particular highlight for her was filming the lockdown videos that were used nationally to teach children from home. As well as empowering children to achieve their best academically, Kirsty advocates that building confidence, self-esteem, and cultural capital is fundamental to the development of all children and is dedicated to ensuring that Ashford Hill continues to develop a nurturing, ambitious and thought-provoking curriculum that inspires all children. Children's social and emotional wellbeing is at the forefront of the Ashford Hill ethos to ensure that all children flourish as confident and happy young people.

Lars Dyrelund holds a BSc in Data Science and MSc in Economics - both from Copenhagen Business School in Denmark. In his day job, Lars is the Head of Product for Firefly Learning whose software is used by more than half a million students worldwide. Firefly Learning is an educational technology company based in London, England with offices in Sydney, Australia that provides parent engagement and learning continuity platforms to hundreds of schools around the world. Lars spends his time working with his team to identify the core challenges facing schools around teaching, learning and parental engagement, and builds solutions to help every student reach their full potential. In his spare time Lars volunteers as a Special Constable, which he has done since he started in the Met in 2013. He is currently the Special Inspector for Thames Valley Police in Reading supervising 35 Special Constables, and enjoys helping his team make a difference in the community it serves. Lars lives in Berkshire and is married with one daughter and one son. His daughter is currently a Year 9 student at Reading Girls' School.

Lindsey is an experienced governor and trustee. She was Vice Chair of a Wokingham Primary school for six years before moving on to govern at a secondary school in Earley for 10 years. She is currently a Trustee at another MAT and Chair of Governors at a Bracknell Primary school. Lindsey was delighted to join The Thames Learning Trust in September 2019. Lindsey's background is in accounts working for Combined Lease Finance PLC in the city then working locally while her children were young. She is currently a host family for Reading Football club offering a safe ‘home from home' for their young players on both a long and short term basis.

Job Titles:

• Member of the Education Board

Marika Farrugia has held various Senior Leadership positions in secondary schools, more recently in two all throughs schools in London. She has a passion for school improvement and pupils' wellbeing, as well as providing young people with the opportunities to broaden their experiences through working and communicating with young from all over the world, through establishing links with schools in China, Europe and South America. Her work with the British Council facilitated pupils exchange visits to China and European countries. Marika graduated with a History Degree, followed by her Masters, at the University of London. She completed her teacher training at the Institute of Education, over 20 years ago, and then proceeded to work in a number of inner-city schools in London, and the South East. Marika was proud to have been appointed as Principal at Reading Girls' School.

Job Titles:

• Chief Executive Officer

Richard Kearsey is the Chief Executive Officer of The Thames Learning Trust having held a number of senior management positions in secondary schools. He holds the National Professional Qualification Headship and the Professional Qualification for School Inspectors. Richard is an Ofsted Lead Inspector.

Bob gained a B Ed degree from Oxford University. He was a teacher at Cippenham Middle School and Deputy Headteacher at Wexham Court Middle School and Lynch Hill Combined School in Slough before becoming Headteacher of Tylers Green Middle School in Buckinghamshire for eighteen years. Bob became a governor of Lynch Hill Combined School in 1992. He has served as Vice-Chair of Governors, Chaired the Curriculum, Personnel and Pay Review Committees and was a member of the Finance Committee. He continued as a trustee when the School became a Primary Academy in 2011 and chaired the Trust Board for two years after it became a Multi Academy Trust in 2014. In retirement Bob continues as a parish councillor. He is Vice-Chair of Farnham Royal Parish Council, a volunteer librarian at the local community library and a fairly frequent traveller to California and Australia where he has family.

Job Titles:

• Day

Joining the trust in 2023 I have a background in the Education charity sector working with schools across the South-East to ensure that all children regardless of background had the best access to Education possible. More recently, I work in High Tech, specifically in Research and Advisory. I advise clients on the latest market, technology, and industry insights to help them achieve their top priorities. Personally, I moved to Reading in 2022 with my wife and dog (Toast). Moving into a new area I wanted to ensure that I was involving myself in the local community. With a background in Education and having previously governed at a local school in the South East I wanted to utilise my professional skills to help schools in the local area.

Job Titles:

• Solicitor

Tina Wisener is a solicitor and the Head of Doyle Clayton's Reading office. Doyle Clayton is the UK's largest firm of workplace law specialists and advise on the full range of employment and workplace law issues. Tina splits her time between advising clients and managing a team of lawyers. She has particular expertise in outsourcing, restructuring and redundancy programmes, complex discrimination cases and board level reorganisations. She regularly delivers training for clients on a wide range of legal issues impacting the workplace. Recent training has included Respect at work and Understanding stress and mental health issues in the workplace. Prior to qualifying as a solicitor in 2001, Tina served as an Army officer for eight years specialising in Human Resources Management and was posted to Germany, Canada and in several locations in the South of England. Tina lives in Berkshire and is married with 3 sons. Outside of work she enjoys walking, skiing and watching her sons play rugby.

Victoria joined TLT in Autumn 2023. She graduated in 2009 with a BSc in Computer Science and has over 15 years' experience of managing projects and programmes in the IT industry, across mainly the government and telecommunications sectors. In her current role as Senior IT Programme Manager, she is overseeing the implementation of new Cyber Security legislation into her organisation's IT systems. Victoria has many transferable skills from her professional career which she can bring to the Trust, including financial management and setting and monitoring of an organisation's strategy.