Past Event

Sir David Carter

Executive Director of System Leadership at Ambition Institute

Sir David was the product of a comprehensive school in South Wales and was the first member of his family to go to university where he studied for a Music degree at Royal Holloway College, London. Making a difference to the lives of children has been a huge motivation to him throughout his career. He began his career as a music teacher in 1983 and went on to become a Local Authority music advisor, a headteacher, an executive head and the CEO of the Cabot Learning Federation, a multi academy trust in Bristol.

In 2014 Sir David was appointed to be the first Regional Schools Commissioner in the South West and took up the position of National Schools Commissioner (NSC) in December 2015. As NSC, his focus was firmly on building capacity so that the trusts that run our most challenging schools can sustain improvement over time. From 2018 to 2021 Sir David was the Director of System Leadership at the Ambition Institute and now works with a number of schools and trusts advising them on their strategy. In August 2020, Sir David published his book “Leading Academy Trusts-why some fail but most don’t” with the book having hit the target of 4000 sales in the summer of 2022.

Sir David is a trustee at several charities including Centrepoint, the charity that is aiming to eradicate youth homelessness, a trustee of the charity that oversees the annual Teaching Awards as well as being on the board of the Talent Foundry Trust, a charity creating new opportunities through wider enrichment and support for dis-advantaged children. Sir David continues to place family, music, golf and Cardiff City FC at the heart of his relaxation time and continues to be very proud of being awarded a knighthood for his services to education in the summer of 2013.

INVITED: Bridget Phillipson MP

Secretary of State for Education

Bridget is the Labour Member of Parliament for Houghton and Sunderland South; one of three constituencies in the City of Sunderland. She was first elected to the seat on 6 May 2010, and was most recently re-elected at the 2024 General Election. She is also the Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Women and Equalities.

Sarah Burns

Co Founder & Director, Data2Action

Sarah is a professional strategic leader with extensive operational and organisation transformation experience across industry sectors. After spending most of her career in the Customer Service industry leading large teams across many continents Sarah setup Data Data2Action alongside her business partner Jason Turner.

Data2action provide Data Compliance (GDPR / DPO) and Data and Insight services to the education sector where their ambitions are to equip Trust/school leaders with the capability and culture to unleash true value from their data.

Julie Collins

Commercial Director, Bishop Wilkinson Catholic Education Trust & Bishop Wilkinson Commercial Services Ltd

Julie’s experience within the education sector and public procurement more widely is extensive, spanning 3 decades.  During her career she has been instrumental in education development across the public and private sector covering numerous categories, driving improvement, compliance, efficiency, and savings.  During that time Julie has remained a School Governor and is currently Chair for a Primary Academy, her knowledge and understanding firmly rooted in education.  

Julie’s background includes time with NEPO, YPO and CCS – giving her a unique insight into the procurement landscape and the variety of options available to schools.  Julie is a Board Level Director of Bishop Wilkinson Commercial Services Ltd and the commercial strategy was born out of Julie’s desire to help schools navigate the complex landscape, achieve savings, drive greater benefits, improve vital services and ensure a more balanced attitude across the entire sector.

Katherine Cowell

Regional Schools Director for the North East, Department for Education

Katherine Cowell started in her role as Regional Director for the North East in July 2022 as part of a change programme within the Department of Education to bring improvement and intervention in SEND and CSC together with the stewardship of the schools system.

Prior to this Katherine was Regional Schools Commissioner for North in May 2020, following an interim position since July 2019.

Katherine is an experienced civil servant with a broad range of experience including:

 an area director within the Cities and Local Growth Unit
 FE and skills policy
 an education advisor in the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit

Leora Cruddas

Chief Executive, Confederation of School Trusts (CST)

Leora Cruddas CBE is the founding Chief Executive of the Confederation of School Trusts – the national organisation and sector body for academy trusts in England.  She is a teacher and has spent many years working at director level in local government. She is Visiting Professor at UCL Institute of Education. Leora was awarded a CBE in the New Year’s Honours, 2022.

Julie Deville

CEO, Extol Trust

Julie is CEO of Extol Trust a six school Trust based in the North East of England. She is passionate about the school led system and  formed Extol Trust to further enhance system leadership in the North East She has significant experience of effective school improvement.

Julie currently sits on TeachFirst's North East Strategic Board and has supported their development of the Early Careers Teaching programme.

As CEO, Julie has developed a different professional skillset than that of a Headteacher. She has gained insight into project management, managing change, talent strategy, financial predicting and metrics around financial sustainability within a complex organisation of a Trust, thus creating a sustainable community of improvement.

Lee Elliot Major OBE FAcSS

Professor of Social Mobility, University of Exeter

Lee Elliot Major is Britain’s first Professor of Social Mobility, based at the University of Exeter. He was previously Chief Executive of the Sutton Trust and a trustee of the Education Endowment Foundation.

His work is dedicated to improving the prospects of disadvantaged children and young people. He works closely with school leaders, universities, and employers. Lee is one of the most prominent public voices in national education debates and regularly advises the Government on social mobility.

His award winning Bloomsbury book What Works?, provides evidence-informed tips for teachers to improve learning and followed on from his work to produce the first Sutton Trust-EEF teaching and learning toolkit. His latest book, The Good Parent Educator, aims to empower parents to improve the education of their children.

He is a Trustee of the Ted Wragg Multi Academy Trust and a governor at William Ellis school.

He was awarded an OBE in the 2019 Queen’s Honours. He is the first in his family to go to university.

Sharon Garrett

Cybersecurity Advisor, DfE

Following 15 years in Law Enforcement and earning her Masters degree in Cybercrime investigation, Sharon joined the Department for Education in January 2022 to further her learning and passion for protecting young people from online harms. 

A qualified trainer, Sharon works within a small, dedicated team to provide proactive and reactive cyber security support and awareness, helping the education sector to understand the threats and challenges of the digital age and to build resilience from cyberattacks.

Emma Harrison

COO, Bishop Chadwick Catholic Education Trust

Emma is Chief Operating Officer at a large and growing Multi Academy Trust in the North East, serving three Local Authority areas.  Emma has been with the Trust since it was established, implemented the central services provision and has overseen the rapid trust growth from one school to 30.

Prior to moving into the education sector, Emma worked across both Sunderland City Council and South Tyneside Council for over 15 years in HR.  Latterly as a Chartered Member of the CIPD providing professional HR advice to school leaders and governing boards.

Emma sits on the Schools North East SBM Council and is a member of ISBL.

Hugh Hegarty

Chief Executive Officer, Nicholas Postgate Catholic Academy Trust

Hugh is the founding CEO of NPCAT, one of the largest Multi Academy Trust in the UK. NPCAT was founded in September 2018 with an initial pool of 25 schools merging from 4 smaller MATs into 1 based on Teesside. Since then it has added a further 12 schools and in February will grow from 37 to 38 schools. The Trust now reaches across Teesside into North Yorkshire and the City of York.

Hugh has extensive sector experience across  Primary, Secondary and Tertiary education. He is Chair of Edperitus which has led the opening of the British University campus for DMU in Kazakhstan. Hugh’s breadth of educational leadership is exceptional. In the UK he has led the Trust through over 30 successful Ofsted inspections. In this short time Hugh has taken 3 Secondary schools and 1 Primary School from Ofsted rated category of "Special Measures'  or Requires Improvement. By February NPCAT will have over 14,000 students and 2,000 employees. Hugh has 30 years in a range of  leadership roles with extensive experience of executive school leadership and leading national educational reform programmes and success in establishing high quality international schools.

Hugh understands the challenges of transnational educational issues, and has delivered significant school improvement programmes in multiple global contexts.

He has expertise in the provision of excellent curriculum.

Hugh has extensive experience of raising standards in schools internationally having spent 9 years based in the Middle East.  He has developed a robust and secure School Improvement Framework which has gained an acknowledgement among leaders with now embedded processes that deliver  high quality education in primary and secondary schools.

Raising outcomes for students in diverse contexts highlights his remarkable and unparalleled ability to “get” so many educational issues that theorists, educational bureaucrats and “career leaders” are frightened to address, sets him apart. Hugh articulates a clear vision which demonstrates his astute and insightful understanding of the key issues impacting on the effectiveness of .

As a Director of NPCAT and accounting officer Hugh brings extensive knowledge and experience of financial management and strategic oversight.

Callium Mason

Correspondent, TES

Callum is a correspondent at Tes, writing about funding, school business, catch-up and more. He previously worked as a civil servant at HM Treasury and as a financial journalist.

Julie Sheppard

Education Sector leadership consultant

Julie has worked in the education sector for over 40 years and was co-founder and director of a successful education support services business, Avec Partnership. Julie is well known across the education sector for supporting school leaders with complex staffing issues, academy conversions, Trust formations, mergers and growth along with her in-depth knowledge of all things HR, H&S, Governance for schools and Trusts along with education finance. With a diverse professional background Julie merges expertise at a senior level across the education sector, including working for many years in local authorities and central government, with a strong commercial background.

Julie has worked on a wide range of projects facilitating business growth, successful service delivery, business and school / academy improvement planning, organisational change and due diligence.

David Shields

Director of Bishop Wilkinson Commercial Services Ltd

David works at a senior executive level across public, private, and civil society.  David has proven ability to deliver stretching targets while managing significant cultural change, as demonstrated when Managing Director of the UK ‘s Government Procurement Service, which is now known as Crown Commercial Services. 

David is focused on procurement being one of the key drivers for change across all sectors in tackling inequality and climate change.  David believes all organisations can be part of the solution by designing how they operate to ensure they tackle social and economic inequality and positively impact our environment at a local, regional, national and global level. 

Through his work as Non-Executive Director of Social Value UK, David created the Contract for Change programme to share best practice procurement approaches from across the public and private sector, then combine, develop and share these to create a suite of strategic and operational approaches, tools, templates and guidance that will benefit all stakeholder groups.

David is also Board Level Director of Education Commercial Services and has been instrumental in creating the procurement offer to support the education sector in meeting their specific needs.

Ian Simpson

CEO & Accounting Officer, Laidlaw Schools Trust

Ian began his career in 1993 as a PE and Geography teacher in Selby, after completing a BSc in Sports Science at the highly regarded West London Institute and his PGCE at Brunel University. Ian has wide-ranging experience, including teaching PE at a high school in Sydney. Since then, Ian progressed in leadership roles, becoming Assistant Headteacher at Wingfield School, Rotherham in 2004 where he was part of a newly-formed, small leadership team who took the school out of special measures directly to ‘Good’. In 2006, Ian was appointed Deputy Headteacher at King James’s School, Knaresborough, and through a partnership, he also supported Nidderdale High School as Associate Head, before being appointed Head in 2012. Here he secured a ‘Good’ Ofsted judgement, re-establishing Nidderdale as the school of choice for its community.

In 2015 Ian joined Oasis Community Learning, one of the UK’s largest trusts. As Principal at Lister Park, Ian secured the school’s first ever ‘Good’ Ofsted judgement. Following this success, Ian progressed to Executive Principal of Lister Park and Temple Primary School whilst supporting other Academies in the Trust. More recently, he was appointed Executive Principal of Oasis Academy Isle of Sheppey and Specialist Advisor of Inclusion for London and the South East.  

Ian is passionate about Rugby League, having played professionally at London, Huddersfield and Hunslet. Ian’s partner of 28 years is Head of Dance and Drama at a secondary school in Leeds and Ian has three children of whom he is immensely proud.

Graham Stephenson

CEO Aim High Academy Trust

Graham began his career in Education nearly 30 years in the East end of Middlesbrough. He has held various roles over the years, including a spell as a local authority advisor and two primary headships, before becoming CEO of Aim High Academy Trust in 2016.

Aim High Academy Trust is currently a small three school MAT on the outskirts of Sunderland serving just over twelve hundred pupils. They also have a flourishing and successful day-care provision catering for our 0 to 3s.

With some of their young people coming from some of the most deprived areas in the North East, they have a particular pride and expertise in securing the best outcomes for all their young people. They are passionate about making a difference to the life chances of their young people, and put strong emphasis on creating a curriculum that educates in innovative ways.

Aim High is a flagship Trust for the Outdoor Play and Learning (OPAL) initiative, and fully embraces Forest Schools and all aspects of outdoor learning.

Dame Nicola Stephenson

CEO Valour MAT

Dame Nicola has been Executive Headteacher of 2 successful primary schools working in areas of challenge for over 20 years. 4 years ago she led the transformation from 2 softly federated schools to the creation of Valour MAT. Dame Nicola is highly effective in school improvement and has a proven track record in transforming schools and  aims to be involved in school to school improvement for the good of the education system nationally.

In addition to CEO she is also a National Leader of Education supporting schools in the North of England. Dame Nicola is Vice Chair of Schools North East which provides a non-political voice for schools from all sectors in the North East, her role as a National Executive officer for NAHT enables her to further champion the work of leaders in the North East of England and try and find solutions to any regional problems that arise. She has worked in school improvement Nationally and Internationally and also been an advisor for the DFE. As a member of the Fellowship commission she has developed an interest in international educational research. Currently Dame Nicola works with the Regional School Commissioner on the CEO advisory board. 

Dame Nicola enjoys a charity challenge, be it cycling across Madagascar or trekking the foothills of the Himalayas. She has a son at university, 2 cats and 3 cockapoos, one named Indiana Bones, another called Scrappy Doo and the recent addition of Boo. She believes childhood should be full of love, happiness and security, gathering memories to last a lifetime.

Brendan Tapping

CEO, Bishop Chadwick Catholic Education Trust

Brendan has been Chief Executive of BCCET since 2016.

Bishop Chadwick Catholic Education Trust aims to provide an outstanding education for all students attending its schools. It has a range of primary schools, secondary schools and colleges, educating young people from 2 – 18 years covering East Durham, South Tyneside and Sunderland through to the east of the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle.

Brendan graduated from Sunderland University with a BA (Hons) and undertook his PGCE in Geography at Durham.

Brendan then began his teaching career; his first post was At English Martyrs in Hartlepool in 1991. He went on to become a Headteacher, his first Headship was at St Wilfrid’s RC College.

He was promoted to Executive Headteacher for St. Wilfrid’s RC College, St. Bede Catholic School and Byron Sixth Form and St. Joseph’s Catholic Academy in 2015.

Brendan is on various boards including Schools North East, Housing Innovation and Construction Skills Academy (HICSA, Sunderland), Teach First Strategy Board and the Regional Schools Commissioner CEO Board.

Elliot Stirk

CFO, Extol Academy Trust

Elliot is Extol’s lead on both finance and accountancy. He has a number of years experience of working within the public sector, this included supporting schools within a LA and gaining experience of different streams of funding.

Elliot is a fully qualified chartered accountant  having undertaken the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) Professional Qualification,  this enhances the service we provide  to our schools in terms of clarification over such things as National Funding Formula and responding to ESFA announcements in a timely manner.

Elliot  is also an accredited School Resource Management Adviser  (SRMA) and undertakes deployments commissioned by the ESFA across the North of England. His work supports schools and local authorities to look at efficiencies within their budgets.

Graham Vials

Head of Education Law, Ward Hadaway

Graham specialises in providing commercial advice to predominantly employer clients, advising on a full range of contentious and non-contentious employment matters to a variety of private and public sector clients, ranging from owner-managed businesses to large national companies, schools and academies and government departments and local authorities.

Graham provides pragmatic and strategic advice in respect of all day to day HR and employment related matters and has expertise in all aspects of employment law.

Chris Zarraga

Director, Schools North East

Chris has been part of the Schools North East team since its inception in 2007 and in 2019 he was appointed Director.

Chris works with other leaders across the North East, the education sector and charity sector to represent the voice of North East schools, and lobby policy makers to ensure that the North East is not left behind when it comes to education policy. Chris has overseen the launch of the Ednorth evidence-based excellence programme, as well as the partnership with SHINE bringing over £500,000 worth of funding to North East schools.

Under Chris, Schools North East has moved to a greater focus on lobbying around education policy, with the launch of the Manifesto for North East Education in December 2019. As well as being a trustee of a local MAT, Chris sits on various boards including the board for Opportunity North East. Prior to joining Schools North East, Chris worked with over 165 schools in the North East and various education organisations including local authorities, Excellence Partnerships, 14-19 Groups, the Specialist Schools & Academies Trust, and School Improvement Officers. He led a large scale culture change project in education across the North East and was the development consultant for the LEGI funded Wansbeck Enterprise Education Network.