WONDER - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Trustee
- Chairman of the Trust
- Chairman of the Trust View Profile
- Trustee and Chair of the Trust Board
Adam is a Trustee and Chair of the Trust Board. He is now a non-practicing Solicitor after previously being a Partner in a regional law firm. He is the Head of Governance and Compliance and Company Secretary at a Multi Academy Trust in West Yorkshire and North Yorkshire. He is also a Consultant with the Confederation of School Trusts and takes on reviews of other Trusts. He is also Chair of his local secondary school governing body. In addition to this he is a member of the East Riding School Improvement Partnership and Vice Chair of the East Riding's Schools' forum.
Adam brings to the Trust Board his legal skills and knowledge of Trust Governance frameworks and compliance in respect of operational delivery. He contributes to the strategic leadership of the Trust.
Job Titles:
- Trust Director of Estates and Compliance View Profile
Adele has over 30 years' operational and strategic management experience working in facilities, estates, support services and health and safety roles within the healthcare sector. Before moving to the education sector, Adele was Group Estates Director for a large private healthcare company; prior to this she held the position of Group Health and Safety Manager for the same company.
During her career, Adele has project managed new build projects and carried out major and minor refurbishment projects within the healthcare sector. Previous management experience also includes managing Catering, Maintenance, Housekeeping, Security, and IT Departments. Alongside her role, Adele has also worked with specialist furniture companies in designing suitable furniture for use within healthcare.
Institute of Education The Wonder Institute of Education provides a wide range of professional development and training opportunities for all educational colleagues and stakeholders. In addition, we have developed a Wonder curriculum and assessment plan for primary, secondary and sixth form education.
Job Titles:
- Trust Director of Systems and Data
- Trust Director of Systems and Data View Profile
Job Titles:
- Trust Director of the Institute of Education View Profile
As an experienced primary headteacher, he has held three highly successful headteacher posts. Each headship has brought quite different challenges and opportunities. He has led an outstanding school in York and held two headships within North Yorkshire. He has secured proven, rapid improvement in all the schools he has led. This resulted in a ‘Good' Ofsted judgement after joining two schools in a position of historically weak educational outcomes and increased vulnerability.
Before being appointed as the Director of the Institute of Education, he influenced education for pupils on a wider stage as one of His Majesty's Inspectors (HMI). This role has given him an invaluable insight into Ofsted's inspection practice and pedagogy across a wide range of different settings. He has significant inspection experience across a wide remit, including inspection of Initial Teacher Training providers. This has sharpened his understanding of the CCF (Core Content Framework), Teaching Standards and the nuances associated in the many different teacher training pathways. He was a link HMI to a large local authority in the Northeast, Yorkshire and Humber region and supported and developed a group of nine Ofsted inspectors in their day-to-day work with Ofsted.
Now the Director of the Institute of Education, Chris' core belief is that education is our greatest liberator. He is the first point of contact for school's interested in working collaboratively with the IOE on any aspects of school improvements. Improvement through collaboration, is the IoE philosophy. If this interests you, get in touch.
Job Titles:
- Senior Leader
- Trust Head of Curriculum and Assessment View Profile
Gareth has been a senior leader since 2009, having held roles leading teaching and learning, intervention, and curriculum across three different secondary schools. Gareth was a Deputy Headteacher and stepped into the role of acting Head of School at Woldgate during the pandemic before being appointed as the Trust Head of Curriculum and Assessment.
At the Joseph Rowntree School, he built a team to share responsibility and ensure that improvement in teaching could contribute to a rapid cultural change. Under his leadership at Joseph Rowntree School the Ofsted report commented that the school was "focused relentlessly on improving the quality of teaching… As a result, pupils are making better progress across the curriculum and differences between groups of pupils are diminishing rapidly." He also led CPD and ran shared training with Huntington School, feeder primaries, local TeachMeets, as well as delivering school-to-school support of Driffield School and Cannon Lee.
At Millthorpe School, as Head of English, he began with a baseline of results that was ‘significantly below expectations' building the department up to three consecutive years of results that were significantly above expectations.
He has worked on a project for the Trust to review and re-write the long-term curriculum planning for every subject at Longcroft School and Woldgate School.
Job Titles:
- Accountant
- Trust Chief Financial Officer View Profile
Gary is a qualified accountant with over 30 years of post-qualification experience, having worked for North Yorkshire County Council, the Funding Agency for Schools (a former executive agency of the DfE) and the University of York, rising to the level of Assistant Director of Finance, before joining the WLP Trust as Chief Financial Officer in September 2019.
Alongside expertise in operational and strategic finance, he has extensive experience of major finance systems development and implementation and training. Beyond his direct work experience, Gary has served as an examiner for his professional institute (CIPFA), a member of the Finance Committee of a large Yorkshire-based housing association and as an assistant cub scout leader for the scout group in his village.
Job Titles:
- Trust Executive Assistant to the CEO
Job Titles:
- Trust Assistant Director of Estates and Compliance
- Trust Assistant Director of Estates and Compliance View Profile
Job Titles:
- Trustee
- Vice Chair of the Trust
- Vice Chair of the Trust View Profile
John is a determined, innovative and successful waste and renewable energy professional. He has created and delivered new European markets for waste wood biomass and refuse derived fuels for large corporate clients and many smaller businesses. He continues to advise, negotiate fuel contracts and supply waste derived fuels throughout the UK and Europe. In tandem with this work John and partners have developed a £30 million combined heat and power plant burning waste wood biomass at Holbrook, near Sheffield.
This supplies heat to the local district heating schemes and electricity to the Grid. His family firm farms a small mixed unit in the Scottish Borders. A governor and Chair of governors of 15 years standing at primary, federation primaries and secondary school means John brings both passion for children's education and extensive experience in governance of schools. He is particularly adept at working with schools, bringing to bear his extensive finance and development skills from in his working life. He also brings extensive leadership experience, particularly in working with teams to assess, review strategy, set targets and deliver improved performance.
He has also had broad experience in managing organisational change. His enthusiasm for helping to bring about better schools for better outcomes for pupils remains undiminished after many years of governing.
Job Titles:
- CEO
- Trustee
- Trust Chief Executive Officer
- Trust Chief Executive Officer View Profile
- Trust Head of Teaching and Practitioner Development / Jonathan Britton Trust Chief Executive Officer View Profile
Jonathan is Chief Executive Officer and Accounting Officer of the Wonder Learning Partnership (formerly the Wolds Learning Partnership). As Headteacher at Woldgate School he led the school from Requiring Improvement to Good, transforming the quality of education, outcomes, raising the number on roll and addressing an historic deficit. It was identified by the Department of Education as one of the ‘top 100' most improved schools in the country in 2016 and is now heavily oversubscribed. The improvement journey was published in a national journal and resulted in an invitation to parliament. In 2018 he became a National Leader of Education. He was appointed to work with a junior and secondary school at this time by the Department of Education. The junior school (now part of the Trust) under the leadership of a dynamic headteacher was graded as ‘Good' in 2019 - the first time in the school's history. The secondary school had successive ‘Requires Improvement' judgements. The resulting secondary intervention led to improved GCSE outcomes, and it was regraded to ‘Good' in 2022 following the pandemic. In 2019 Jonathan was also appointed Executive Headteacher of Longcroft School following GCSE results that placed the school in the bottom 10% nationally. The Progress 8 score increased from minus -0.5 to be in line with National and the school is currently, with a new Headteacher, awaiting inspection.
He was previously Deputy Head at an Academy graded ‘Outstanding' by Ofsted and experienced the transformation of that school from it being one parents actively sought to avoid due to its reputation, into one that was highly successful and oversubscribed. Throughout this period, he was closely mentored by three highly successful and dynamic Headteachers, completing his NPQH at Manor School in York. As Academy Lead, he oversaw the academisation of Archbishop Holgate's School and the creation of in-house procedures for finance, personnel and operations.
He had also, in this time, contributed to the design, creation and construction of a new Sixth Form that would be recognised by the Department of Education as the highest performing vocational centre in the country, it would also achieve ALPs 1 for A-Level and BTEC provision. As the founder and Head of the Pathfinder Teaching School, he has led on school improvement, staff development, leadership and teacher training, establishing one of the most successful Teaching Schools in the region.
Jonathan was also made a Lay-Canon by the Archbishop of York and appointed to the Chapter of York Minster as a non-executive Trustee in September 2023. Outside of work, Jonathan is a father to his three children, a Formula One fan, enjoys cycling, reading and is an amateur gardener.
It was great to hear of up-to-date inspection information and real-life examples. It was especially good to 'cross pollinate' between authorities, academies and schools. I'll be highly recommending future events to Headteacher colleagues.
Studying for a NPQ has given me the knowledge, support, and confidence to explore and discuss pedagogical development with educational leaders from all over the country.
Job Titles:
- Chartered Certified Accountant
- Member of the Trust
Karen is a qualified Chartered Certified Accountant and accredited SRMA. She has worked for North Yorkshire County Council for 15 years and is currently the Senior Financial Consultant to Schools and Academies, supporting headteachers in managing their schools and particularly their budgets.
She has a long track record of assisting managers without a financial background managing the finances of their organisation and has previously worked in the NHS and for Castle Howard. She was also a Trustee of the Wolds Learning Partnership from January 2017 until December 2019.
Kerri has 16 years' experience in governance across primary, secondary and Further Education. She served on East Riding of Yorkshire council as an elected member from 2007 until 2023.
For over 10 years she has served as Chair of the Children and Young People Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Committee which monitored all aspects of education, safeguarding and wellbeing.
Kerri has been a governor at Longcroft School and Sixth Form College since 2008.
Job Titles:
- Trust Assistant Director of the Institute of Education and Training School View Profile
After graduating from the University of Leeds Kirsten worked abroad as a voluntary teacher in state run schools in Eastern Europe, teaching English. On her return she entered industry as a graduate management trainee for a large corporation and worked as a department, and senior manager before becoming a trouble shooter for failing departments.
After seven years Kirsten decided to return to her love of teaching and enrolled to study for her PGCE in Business and Economics at the University of Hull. Her teaching career began at Driffield School, where she was a Business and Economics teacher, with responsibilities for whole-school Enterprise and the EPQ. During her time at Driffield, she completed her Certificate in Continued Professional Development before studying part time for her MEd in Leadership and Change at the University of Hull
Kirsten moved to Woldgate School and Sixth Form College in 2014 to take up the role of Head of Business and within just two years had moved the lowest performing department in the school to one of the highest. Business Studies GCSE grades rose by 30%, with the Business BTEC ALPS outcomes increasing by 5 levels and the 2015 Ofsted report commended the sixth form business students for their strong progress.
Kirsten has continued to take on additional responsibilities as Head of Psychology and as an Associated Assistant Headteacher, where she introduced Enterprise into the school via the Peter Jones Enterprise Academy and whole school Enterprise events. Before joining the Institute of Education, Kirsten performed an associate role in the Wonder Teaching School and continues to lead on ITT, intern recruitment, CPD and marketing across the trust.
Job Titles:
- Trust Head of Teaching and Practitioner Development / Jonathan Britton Trust Chief Executive Officer View Profile
- Trust Head of Teaching and Practitioner Development View Profile
Before being appointed as the Trust Head of Teaching and Practitioner Development Kirsty was employed at Archbishop Holgate School in York and during her time there was a Head of Department, Assistant Headteacher and part of a Teaching and Learning Team. She delivered whole-school training on effective reading strategies, exam techniques, and marking and feedback; implemented a whole-school marking and feedback policy; worked with members of staff to improve their planning and teaching; led ITT training sessions; and mentored both ITTs and NQTs.
As Head of English, she was responsible for curriculum design from Year 7 to Year 13. She developed a cross-phase approach from Key Stage 2 and 3 to effectively manage pupils' academic transition. She designed a rigorous Key Stage 3 curriculum that built on the principles of Key Stage 2 and worked with the Primary Consultant for York to quality assure individual schemes of work. The department remained high performing throughout her tenure and achieved a Progress 8 of +0.8.
She was involved in delivering whole-school training; meeting with Heads of Department to create bespoke departmental policies; delivering ‘effective marking' sessions to ITT students, NQTs and staff who were new to the school; and providing teachers with practical strategies to improve marking. She also led on the school's involvement as a control school for a FLASH marking trial, which explores the effectiveness of coded marking.
During her employment at the Trust Kirsty has led on a whole Trust reading strategy which has resulted in one school ranked as one of the top 5% in the country.
Job Titles:
- Trust Finance Assistant
- Trust Finance Assistant View Profile
Job Titles:
- Trust Assistant Director of People and Culture / Finance
Job Titles:
- Trust People and Culture Administrator
Job Titles:
- Trust Communication Officer
- Trust Communication Officer View Profile
Job Titles:
- Trust Assistant Director of People and Culture
- Trust Assistant Director of People and Culture View Profile
Job Titles:
- Trust Compliance Assistant
- Trust Compliance Assistant View Profile
Job Titles:
- Trust Administrator for the Institute of Education / Chief Executive Officer
- Trust Administrator for the Institute of Education View Profile
Headteachers Our headteachers are part of the Trust's leadership team and work collegiately to improve our schools with the focus of making sure our children receive an excellent education.