School partnerships alliance
Advisory board
S.P.A. benefits from the wealth of knowledge and experience of its trustees, advisory board and operational staff, who are drawn together from across many sectors. What they all share is a passionate belief in the power of partnerships.
Anne Bamford OBE
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Professor Anne Bamford is the former Strategic Director of Education, Skills and Culture for the City of London. Anne has been recognized nationally and internationally for her research in education, emerging literacies and visual communication. She is an expert in the international dimension of education and through her research, she has pursued issues of creativity, innovation, social impact and equity and diversity. Anne has conducted major national impact and evaluation studies for the governments of Denmark, The Netherlands, Belgium, Iceland, Hong Kong, and Norway.
Fiona Boulton OBE
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Fiona Boulton is Director of Independent Schools for United Learning and she is on their executive team. She is Executive Head at Guildford High School. She was appointed an NLE in 2013. Fiona has recently helped to set up and launch the West Surrey Partnership for the independent and state schools in the Guildford area.
Fiona is currently a Member of the Learning Partners Academy Trust and a member of the governing body of St Ives Prep School and Epsom College. She is an Associate Director of the University of Cumbria in addition to being part of the Ofqual Advisory Group and the Pearson Advisory Group.
Fiona held the HMC Chair role for 2019-20 and was an Advisory Board Member of the Institute for Ethical Artificial Intelligence in Education (2019-2021).
She was awarded an OBE in the King’s New Years Honours List for services to education.
Dr Kate Chhatwal OBE
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Kate is CEO of Challenge Partners, an England-wide, practitioner-led school improvement charity. Kate is passionate about education and social justice. Her belief in the ability of children and adults to develop themselves and others, and to transform the world around them, is at the heart of all she does.
Kate’s previous roles include Executive Director of Southwark Teaching School Alliance and Chief Programme Officer at The Future Leaders Trust. Kate also spent 11 years in the Department for Education, where she led the Labour government’s flagship National Challenge Programme and worked on developing far-reaching proposals for 14-19 curriculum and qualifications reform.
Kate has volunteered as a school governor and trustee for more than a decade and is currently a trustee at STEP Academy Trust.
Kate holds a PhD in education policy from the European University Institute in Florence, and was awarded an OBE for services to education in the 2020 New Year’s Honours.
Leora Cruddas CBE
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Leora Cruddas is Chief Executive of the Confederation of School Trusts, the national organisation and sector body for school trusts in England. She has advised successive governments and sits on several DfE Advisory Bodies. She was recently the vice chair of the Head Teacher Standards Review Group, a member of the external advisory group for the Schools White Paper and SEND Green Paper and has also been invited to sit on the Regulatory and Commissioning Review.
Prior to founding CST, she was Director of Policy and Public Relations for the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL). Leora has six years of experience as a Director of Education in two London Local Authorities.
She is Visiting Professor at UCL Institute of Education.
Leora was awarded a CBE in the New Year’s Honours, 2022.
Rowena Hackwood
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Rowena joined Astrea Academy Trust as Chief Executive Officer in July 2020. She has significant experience in leading high profile organisations across the public, not-for-profit and private sectors. Before joining Astrea, Rowena was CEO at David Ross Education Trust (DRET) where from 2017, she embedded performance improvements, introduced a core knowledge curriculum, and led the trust in providing inspirational opportunities and educational excellence.
Rowena provides strong and visionary leadership to those she works with. She drives energetic change to ensure an organisation is the best it can be.
Rowena is also a passionate advocate of building capacity within the sector and works with the Ambition Institute as a trainer on their Executive Educators Programme, mentoring CEOs of growing academy trusts. She is part of the MAT Review Programme and is an active member on a range of advisory groups, including with the Department for Education. She has also served as a trustee with one of the largest academy trusts in the country.
Prior to joining the education sector, Rowena was the Chief Executive of a not-for-profit start-up in the regeneration sector, where she established and ran a £60 million regeneration project on the national stage.
Andrew Halls OBE
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Andrew was Head Master of King’s College School, Wimbledon for more than 13 years, and was previously Master of Magdalen College School, Oxford. Andrew attended a large comprehensive school in Birmingham before reading English at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He is currently Honorary Principal of King’s College School, Bangkok, and an educational consultant focusing on school improvement.
His interests include researching the life and works of Charles Dickens and he has given several lectures on this theme. He has a broad interest in UK education and, in 2020, he was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List for services to education.
Tony Hartney CBE
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Tony Hartney CBE has been a headteacher of inner London primary and secondary schools, including twenty-three years as headteacher of Gladesmore Community School in Tottenham, which serves a community of high economic deprivation. Under his leadership, an exceptionally positive ethos prevailed, outcomes were strong, and community relationships were impressive. For nearly two decades outstanding Ofsted judgements were achieved. Over a hundred students gained bursary places to sixth forms in independent schools, and the school became a flagship for both the Premier League and Moody’s Corporation.
Since retiring from headship, Tony audits safeguarding and provides guidance for schools in this. He has also retained a prominent school improvement role supporting schools in HEP. He notably led the acclaimed London-wide Stepping Stones initiative for the GLA, and he was key in fostering calm and improved community relations following the riots in 2011. Since then, he has chaired several education and community boards and is experienced as a governor of primary, secondary, PRU, AEP and sixth form providers.
Ali Henderson
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Ali is the CEO of Royal National Children’s SpringBoard Foundation (RNCSF), the UK’s largest bursary charity. Prior to becoming CEO, Ali led RNCSF’s focus on impact and learning, building on her previous experience in a focus on strategy development and impact evidence in roles for Oxfam, local government and in Private Office at No.10 Downing Street under the Blair & Brown administrations.
Iain Henderson
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Iain is Director of The Bridge, Wellington College’s new outward-facing centre for Teaching, Learning and Research. He was formerly Deputy Head (Educational Developments and Partnerships) at Wellington College. He has taught in both state and independent sectors in the UK. He has been a Biology teacher; a Head of Year; a Boarding Housemaster; Assistant Head, and Deputy Head. He works with all the schools in the Wellington Family to embed the essential Wellington DNA, ethos and culture, sensitively in each new context. He is co-director of the Festival of Education. He also oversees Educational Conferences, the Wellington College Teaching Alliance, the Independent State School Partnership and the Wheeler Programme, as well as any other partnership or collaborative work undertaken by the school.
Iain is a trained coach and has introduced and grown a coaching culture at Wellington. He has now trained more than 500 teachers there and at other schools to become coaches. He is also a governor of Wellington College International School Bangkok and a trustee at Corvus Multi-Academy Trust. He is a trust member of Ascend Academy Trust and coordinates the enduring collaboration between Wellington College, The Wellington Academy, Wellington Primary Academy and Wellington Eagles Primary.
David Laws
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David joined the Education Policy Institute as Executive Chairman in September 2015.
Between 2010 and 2015, David served in the Coalition Government as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Schools Minister and Cabinet Office Minister. Whilst Schools Minister he was responsible for policy areas including all capital and revenue funding, the Pupil Premium, accountability and policy on teachers and leadership.
David was Member of Parliament for Yeovil from 2001 until 2015.
David graduated from King’s College, Cambridge, with a double first class honours degree in economics and worked at J.P. Morgan and Barclays de Zoete Wedd.
Lord Nash
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Lord Nash was a non-executive director of the Department for Education between 2010 and 2013, a Schools Minister between 2013 and 2017,and the lead non-executive director across government between 2020 and 2022. He is a qualified barrister and a career venture capitalist.
He and his wife founded Future Academies, which manages 10 schools in London and Hertfordshire with a total of 7000 pupils.
Sir Hamid Patel CBE
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Sir Hamid Patel CBE is Chief Executive of Star Academies, a multi-academy trust that operates 31 schools in clusters in Lancashire, West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, West Midlands and London.
Sir Hamid is a member of several national and international strategic educational and policy forums. He currently serves as a board member of Ofsted and the Confederation of School Trusts. He is an Honorary Professor of Education at the University of Birmingham.
In recognition of his service to education, Sir Hamid was awarded a CBE in 2015 and a knighthood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2021.
Carl Ward
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Carl is Chief Executive of the City Learning Trust, an academy trust in Staffordshire. He is also Chair of the Foundation for Education Development (FED). He has regional, national and international experience in education strategy, leadership development and school to school improvement. With more than 26 years in teaching and leadership roles, Carl was also ASCL President (2017 – 2018), part of the Prime Minister’s Talent & Enterprise Taskforce (2009 – 2011) and has advised the Number 10 policy unit on several aspects of education.
He is also Chair of the Careers and Enterprise Company’s Education Advisory Board and previously Chair for the Schools Cooperative Society and the Chartered College of Teaching’s trustee selection committee. He is a serving council member of the International Confederation of Principals and a member of the Global Education Leaders Partnership. In addition, Carl has been a member of the Education Funding Agency advisory board; DfE School and Academy Funding Group; Confederation of School Trusts board and the European School Headteachers Association. In 2020, Carl was recognised for his impact in education and named as a Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching, as well as a Fellow of the Leadership Council at the Center for Universal Education, Brookings Institution, Washington DC.