Pen portraits of our Members & Trustees can be found below. A full list of Members, Trustees and people on our schools' Local Governing Bodies can be found here.
MEMBERS:
LYNNE FAULKNER (Member only)
BA Hons
(Lond) MBA Chartered Fellow CIPD
Experienced
Board Member, global HR Manager and European political leader with a strong
public service record as a member of the UK judiciary, local councillor and
school governor for 25 years in seven schools - Elstow, (Vice Chair),
Priory School, Hitchin (Chair), Pirton
JMI (Vice Chair), John Bunyan Upper
School (Parent), Abbey Middle, Lakeview and Brickhill Lower. Worked for
Universities of Bedfordshire, Luton and London.
Was a UK Member, EU European Economic & Social Committee British
Chairman of the European Union of Women, Vice Chair of Bedfordshire County
Council and Children's Services Committee (220 schools) and Chair, Bedford
Borough Council Policy & Resources Committee and Personnel Appeals
Panel. Chartered Fellow and Graduate of
the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development and Employment Tribunal
Member in Bedford and London for 22 years.
MICHELLE BARNES (Member only)
Michelle
Barnes is a Fellow Chartered Certified Accountant. She has worked for fifteen
years for a specialist practice in London, with a focus on theatre production
accounting. A founding Member and Trustee of the BFS, she played a major part
in the original campaign, drawing on her community links to raise awareness of
the school, and maintaining an oversight of the financial elements of the
project. Having overseen the opening of the Bedford and Kempston Free School
Trust, she has stepped back from the Trustee role to be an independent Member
of the Trust.
JOANNE MOREY (Member only)
A founder and parent Governor, with
significant prior experience of school governance at two local middle schools.
She is Business Manager ( Level 4 Diploma)at a local primary school, and having
taken up this post soon after it opened she has extensive experience of the
particular financial and operational opportunities and challenges that come
with opening and growing a school.
She
previously sat on BFS committees, including the Inclusion Committee with
specific responsibility for oversight of the school’s Pupil Premium strategy.
LIZ ARDEN (Member
& Trustee & Chair of MAT)
Liz Arden has a BA hons degree in Law and
Politics from Keele University and is a
qualified solicitor. She currently works part time for LGSS Law Ltd, a
not-for-profit organisation now owned by three Councils. Her specialism is
commercial property but she also deals with education work relating to academy
conversions. Liz also spent 12 years in higher education teaching the Legal
Practice Course and therefore has considerable experience of the practical side
of teaching.
Liz was appointed as a co-opted governor at BFS in December
2014 She is a member of the Staffing and resources Committees Chair of
the Inclusion Committee and is BFS ‘s
Safeguarding Governor. She is
also Vice Chair of Governors at
Goldington Green Academy, ( Having been Chair for four years previously ) a
high-performing local lower school, recently judged again by Ofsted to be good
with outstanding features. Liz has considerable experience of school governance
and was heavily involved in GGA’s successful conversion to an Academy. She has
recently been appointed by Bedford Borough Council as a Bedford leader of
Governance She therefore knows and understands the demands of running an
Academy and how to lead and drive effective governance, and has recently been
asked to support another local school in this regard. Since joining BFS, Liz
has been influential in shaping the
strategic planning and priorities of the
BFS Governors and has added considerable experience to the already diverse
skills of the BFS governing body She will use these skills to help develop and
shape good and effective governance across Advantage Schools.
RYAN TOBIAS (Member & Trustee/Vice-Chair of
MAT)
Certified
NLP Practitioner (ABNLP). Experience of running own business for 8 years which
has ensured a broad and diverse exposure to people and industries. Experience
both leading and working in a team.
Ability to see the bigger picture and comfortable working at both
strategic and operational level. Ability
to communicate at a range of levels appropriate to the audience’s needs and
level of understanding. Proven problem solver, focusing and directing efforts
towards achieving the required outcomes. Governor – Chair and Vice for 4 years.
Good knowledge of Key Stage 1 & 2
curriculum, Personnel Management, Finance, Budgeting, analysing strengths and
weaknesses, assessment and monitoring. Produced the schools online tracking and
data handling system to meet the needs of the new National Curriculum.
TRUSTEES:
Liz Arden – details as above
Ryan Tobias – details as above
Ian Redpath has been a Governor of
Elstow School since 2012. He is Chair of the facilities committee and
Responsible Officer for Assets and Health and Safety since 2010. Ian has Royal
Society of Arts certificate in supply and distribution management, RAF trade
certificates in supply, distribution and air movements, studied through RAF
supply & purchasing with the institute of purchasing and supply. He has
good working knowledge of procurement, contracting services, financial
planning, project management, performance management, recruitment, school
buildings and maintenance, Health and Safety both legislation and policy.
Emma Abbey has been a governor since
July 2015. She is the Governor responsible for Safeguarding and is also one of
the Appraisers for the Head Teachers performance management. Emma is a
qualified Secondary School teacher and hold a BA (Hons), she is a visiting
Moderator for GCSE examinations and she owns her own business. She has good
knowledge of marketing and public relations, project management, Key Stage 3
curriculum, equal opportunities and diversity, personnel management,
safeguarding, special needs and the Ofsted process.
Lorna Godden has been a Trustee/Governor of BFS since November 2011, and a
Member of the Trust since 2013. She has sat on the BFS Staffing and Resources
committee as well as chairing the Exclusion panel. Lorna is a qualified
secondary school teacher with 10 years’ experience working within teaching,
training, learning & development and Human Resources. Roles in HR have
included HR Adviser for Argos Retail Group; Training Specialist for Accenture
HR Services and Training and Development Manager for The Harpur Trust. More
recently Lorna was the 16-19 Education Commissioning Officer within Bedford
Borough's School Improvement team.
Lorna
has a BA (Hons) Business Studies with HR degree, QTS, is a Paralegal in
Employment Law and has been a serving Magistrate on the Bedfordshire Bench
since January 2008.
Nigel Syson FCA , BSc has been the Chair of Governors of BFS since
2012. He was heavily involved in the pre-opening phase of the school,
including managing aspects of the relationship with Bedford Borough.
Prior to joining BFS Nigel
was a Governor at Wootton Upper School for 12 years where he was Chair of
Staffing & Resources and was involved in the school’s conversion to academy
status. Given his significant professional and school experience, Nigel was
involved in the implementation of the BFS accounting systems and sat on the BFS
Staffing & Resources and Teaching & Learning Committees, as well as the
Discipline Committee.
In his day job Nigel is an
advisor to family businesses with turnovers up to £25 million. This work
deals with all aspects of companies business lifecycles and Nigel is heavily
involved in succession planning. Previously a Director with Baker Tilly, a
national firm of Chartered Accountants, Nigel is currently employed as a
Director with Haines Watts, a top ten firm of chartered accountants.
David Hill has been a Governor of Bedford Free School since November 2011. He
is Vice Chair of the BFS LGB and previously chaired its Teaching and Learning
Committee. David is both a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute for
Securities & Investment and a Chartered Wealth Manager and has worked in
the financial industry since he began his career at NatWest Stockbrokers in
1987.
In the mid-90s
he was recruited by Standard Chartered to run a derivatives trading desk in
Hong Kong and before setting up David Hill Wealth Management with the backing
of St. James’s Place, he worked as a stockbroker with Charles Stanley for ten
years looking after investment portfolios for individuals, trusts, companies
and charities.
David is
involved with a number of local charities through his membership of the Rotary
Club of Bedford and has recently been co-opted onto The Harpur Trust’s
Endowment Committee, which has overall responsibility for the charity’s
property assets and a £75m investment portfolio.
John
Guthrie is a self-employed management consultant and specialises in
employment, educational and organisational issues affecting Britain’s
Hospitality and Tourism sector. He is now concentrating his work on the
resourcing challenge for the sector which has become reliant on employees from
the EU. This involves working with major employers, key government departments
and the Careers Service.
Having read Law at University, he moved
into Industrial Relations (which became HR in the 1980s) and gained 25 years’
experience working for Cadbury Schweppes, Diageo and Hilton in senior executive
roles. His most recent corporate role was to be in charge of Resourcing,
Learning and Development for the Hilton hotel business which, at that time,
employed over 75,000 people in 80 countries around the world. John was
responsible for the design and implementation of a global learning platform - a
corporate University – which provided multi-language options in personal
development for thousands of people. Within the sector, this was a
revolutionary innovation and became the template for other organisations to
follow. John also has very detailed knowledge about performance management.
Mick
Marsh is a recently retired, experienced Headteacher, most recently of
the very popular Castle Lower School (Rated Ofsted “Outstanding” since 2008
under his leadership.) He still provides school improvement support for a
number of local schools, through his work with Bedford Borough Council.