Trustees

Toby is an experienced Non-Executive Director (NED) and former CEO. He is Chair of CATS Global Schools and Lift Ryde Academy Council, Visiting Professor of Education Leadership at the University of Wolverhampton, and has been Chair of the Teaching Awards Trust for 6 years. He advises a number of Ed Tech companies and is on the advisory boards of Evidence Based Education and a Non-Executive for Pearson Education Ltd.  Toby is also a Non-Executive Director of the Portsmouth Hospitals and Isle of Wight NHS Trusts. He is Chair of the Isle Of Wight Education Forum a cross sector partnership board.

Toby was Chief Executive of AQA, the largest exam board in the UK. He was also CEO of Ormiston Academies Trust, overseeing 42 academies in some of the most challenging areas of the country and leading 3,500 staff and 26,000 students. Prior to this, he served as Deputy Chief Executive of the National College for School Leadership, advising ministers and shaping national leadership development policy. He was director of the Department for Education’s Innovation unit and before this head of several schools, in the specialist sector.

Retired Civil Servant, formerly Director General for Schools at the Department for Education 

Andrew retired in 2023 after a long career at the highest levels of the civil service:  26 years as a senior civil servant in the Department for Education and its predecessors, the last 12 of which he was the Director General on the Leadership Team of the Department responsible for the school system.  His wide range of policy roles during the Labour governments 1997-2010 included the establishment of a cross-Whitehall unit for children and young people’s outcomes, responsibility for school standards, the teacher workforce agreement, and cross-Whitehall delivery programmes in support of vulnerable young people.  His leadership roles under the Coalition and Conservative governments 2010-2023 included the academies and free schools programmes, school funding reform, safeguarding in schools, the teaching workforce and school curriculum and qualifications. 

He received an OBE in 2001 for public service and was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 2019 

Corrienne Peasgood is President of the Association of Colleges, the national voice for England’s colleges. Corrienne took up the role in October 2022 after more than 25 years in Further Education.
Corrienne trained as a plumber after leaving school at 16 and by the age of 21, she had completed an apprenticeship and joined her family business in plumbing and heating. In 1996, the opportunity came to join City College Norwich as a sessional plumbing lecturer and over the next 15 years Corrienne moved on to become a full-time lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Director, Vice Principal, and Deputy Principal. Thus, gaining insights into the many different departments at the college. Corrienne then served as CEO and Principal at City College Norwich for a decade, before retiring in July 2022.
Corrienne was appointed an OBE in 2020 and was Vice Chair of Norfolk’s Children and Young People’s Strategic Alliance and FE Board member of the New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership (NALEP). Corrienne is Chair of the NALEP Agri-Food Industry Council.

An entrepreneur and educator at heart, Jon is passionate about building ‘bigger’ people and organisations.

Having spent much of the last 30 years in professional services, he has built his career around helping both blue-chips (Merrill Lynch & Credit Suisse) and start-ups (Redington) grow and develop their businesses around engagement, alignment and relationship development.

Today, as Co-CEO and Co-Founder of 4 Habits Consulting, Jon helps leaders and teams build ‘Relational Intelligence’ to improve wellbeing and productivity, and develop heathier, happier, more inclusive cultures.  As part of his give back, Jon co-founded Soulmates Academy Foundation to help people in schools, colleges and communities develop the skills to do relationships well, on purpose.

Together with his wife Andrea, Jon talks about the importance of proactively developing ‘The 4 Habits of ALL Successful Relationships’ in their TEDx talk and book of the same title.

Julie McCulloch is Chief Executive of the Educational Policy Institute, an independent, impartial and evidence-based research institute which aims to promote high-quality education outcomes for all children and young people, regardless of their social background.

Before joining EPI in 2026, Julie spent fifteen years in various senior policy roles, including Interim Head of Policy at the Education Endowment Foundation; Senior Director of Strategy, Policy and Professional Development at the Association of School and College Leaders; and Director of UK Policy and Thought Leadership at Pearson. Prior to that, she worked in educational publishing.

Julie holds a number of other governance roles, including as a member of Pearson’s Qualifications Committee.

Mandy Coalter is the author of the successful book ‘Talent Architects; how to make your school a great place to work’, published in 2018. Previously, she was Director of People at United Learning, one of the largest school groups in the UK. Before that, Mandy worked in senior HR roles in local government, the NHS, the voluntary sector and schools and is a very experienced board director and advisor on aspects of corporate governance.

HR magazine listed Mandy in the top 40 HR Most Influential Practitioners in 2017 and she was shortlisted for the HR Excellence Awards ‘HR Director of the Year’ in 2018.

Nicole Reid is the Executive Principal of four high achieving local primary schools in Hackney, London.

Moving from Jamaica in her early twenties, Nicole has over twenty years of experience in education, working her way from class teacher to Executive Principal, spending some time at every rung of the ladder. Her passion for education as a life changing force may have been forged in Jamaica but Nicole has spent her career using it as a personal motivation to make successes out of the local schools she is responsible for, and which serve diverse communities with high proportions of disadvantaged pupils.

As well as her main Executive role she is a Local education Lead and has been coach and mentor for Heads and SLT teams within and outside of the Federation she runs. Much of her work has been involved with transforming schools identified by local and national government. She sits on the local authority Executive Headteacher Advisory Board, a vital bridge between strategic policy makers, schools and families.

With a particular passion for early language and reading for pleasure, Nicole is also the Strategic Lead for one of the thirty two English Hubs, financed by the DfE, supporting schools in the South East of England.

At the heart of Nicole’s career is the building of excellence in local education for diverse communities with a particular focus on pupils who have been impacted by poverty. Her uncompromising, hands on approach allied to a willingness to make hard decisions and a determination to hold people to account including herself and close colleagues has earnt her respect from many.

Shane is the managing director of Lsect, an education publishing and events company operating across the UK. He is the publisher of the leading education news outlets Schools Week & FE Week.

He joined the organisation to launch FE Week in 2011. A dedicated newspaper for the further education and skills system in England. In 2014 he launched Schools Week, covering the education system from early years through to secondary education.

Shane is also the director of the prestigious Festival of Education at Wellington College. He became a trustee of the Teaching Awards Trust in 2020.

Steve is Deputy Chief Executive of the Confederation of School Trusts (CST), the national organisation and sector body for school trusts in England. Before joining CST, he was Curriculum and Inspection Specialist for the Association of School and College Leaders. Steve has sat on a range of advisory bodies, including Ofsted’s curriculum advisory group and the Department for Education’s remote learning advisory group. Originally trained as a history teacher, Steve was a Vice Principal of one of England’s most improved secondary schools before moving into a career in education policy.

Dr. Tesca Bennett is a leadership coach, trustee, and Director of Adullam Associates Ltd, a consultancy specialising in executive coaching, leadership development and school Improvement.  She is the former Executive Principal at the Haberdashers’ Academies Trust South, with over 14 years of headship experience in both all-through 3-18, and secondary school settings.   

She brings expertise in raising educational standards, shaping organisational strategy, and strengthening governance in schools and Multi-Academy Trusts (MATs), alongside a steadfast commitment to educational equity and high-quality education for all pupils.

As former Chair of the Tackling Race Inequality in Education steering group, Dr Tesca Bennett has been a strong advocate for inclusive leadership and the role of education in driving social regeneration, particularly in disadvantaged communities.

Tesca contributes to the wider educational sector as a trustee for The Brit School and Vice Chair of Trustees at Astrea Multi Academy Trust, where she chairs the Education and Standards Committee. She also contributes to national and regional improvement work, including as part of a Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence (RISE) team and as a member of the expert working group shaping the Department for Education’s Enrichment Framework.