Our People

Dawn is Chief Executive Officer. Dawn became CEO in January 2022 having previously served as Deputy CEO and Education Director.

Dawn has been a delegate on the Future Leaders (Ambition School Leadership) Executive Educators programme, is a facilitator on the Executive Headship programme and the Vice Chair of the Board of a MAT in the West Midlands.

Dawn was the founder and Chief Executive of the Student Engagement Trust which focused on the advancement of student engagement, voice and leadership to drive educational improvement working with schools, multi academy trusts and corporate educational organisations in England and the USA. In addition, Dawn has served on a number of national student voice and leadership advisory groups, including ‘My Education’ in partnership with Teach First and Pearson.

Dawn spent 10 years at the Youth Sport Trust where she supported pre-designation and re-designation and school improvement of specialist sports colleges. Dawn was the national lead for the coaching and leadership and volunteering strands of the government’s Physical Education and School Sport Strategy for Young People, working closely with the Department for Education and the Department for Culture Media and Sport. During this time, Dawn also worked closely with government departments in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, India and Malaysia to support policy and national strategy development for the advancement of student leadership. Dawn advised the London Organising Committee for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games on their legacy strategy for young people as well as leading the establishment of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games Youth Board.

Dawn's early career was as a PE Teacher, Head of PE and Director of Sport. Dawn wrote a successful bid for her school to become one of the first few Specialist Sports Colleges in the country where she became Assistant Headteacher. Dawn has a Master’s degree in Educational Leadership and Management and is a published author in the field of student engagement, voice and leadership. Dawn has presented at numerous conferences in the UK and overseas, as well as speaking with the Education Select Committee in the Houses of Parliament and at Conservative and Labour Party conferences.

Rob is Chief Operating Officer at Windsor Academy Trust, after having joined in July 2016 in the role of Operations Director. Rob has worked extensively in the education field within the public and private sectors in the UK and internationally.

Early in his teaching career, Rob gained rapid, successive promotions working within a number of schools in the Midlands. He moved into local government for a decade, and at Northamptonshire County Council he led the review, reorganisation and transformation of a 3-2 tier school system, managed a £1bn Public-Private Partnership school infrastructure programme and helped transform the Extended and e-learning services through new commissioning arrangements.

Rob was then promoted to a national post as an Education Director for a government agency and advised on educational transformation through capital investment. Given the extensive experience of working within the UK education sector, Rob was invited to advise on the future vision and strategy for the development of the general education system in Saudi Arabia. In this role, he built and developed sustainable partnerships and cooperation with the international education community from the public, private and third sectors to support the capacity building of the Saudi education system.

Rob latterly worked with AECOM, a global provider of professional technical and management support services, as its Regional Education Sector Lead on developing the strategic growth of its education market sector in the Middle East. Rob obtained a Master’s Degree in Business Administration (MBA) from Warwick University Business School.

Matt is Director of Primary. He was previously one of Her Majesty’s Inspectors for Ofsted and led over 65 inspections across the West Midlands. During his time with Ofsted, Matt became the National Lead for Physical Education, led a multi academy trust summary evaluation and delivered training to other Ofsted inspectors.

Prior to his time with Ofsted, Matt had two successful headships, the most recent being a three-form entry primary school which was part of a large multi academy trust. Matt progressed this school from a category of concern to an Ofsted rated 'Good' school.Matt was appointed as Lead Principal for the trust and was part of their national strategy group. Within this role he provided executive leadership to a second school in the West Midlands. His first headship was a small rural school, which rapidly moved from an Ofsted grading of ‘good’ to ‘outstanding’ under his leadership.

Before headship, Matt worked in both primary and middle schools as a teacher and senior leader. During this time he led a school sport partnership in Worcestershire. Matt did a BA (Hons) teaching degree at the University of Worcester, specialising in key stage 2 and 3.

Outside of teaching, Matt previously competed for Great Britain as a junior in athletics and later became a level 3 endurance athletics coach, mainly coaching young athletes, including an international triathlete.

Dan is the Director of Secondary Education. He was previously Senior Her Majesty’s Inspector for Ofsted. At Ofsted, Dan led school inspection policy, was the specialist adviser for the 2019 Framework and was school remit lead for Ofsted’s response to the pandemic. In addition, from 2017 to 2020, Dan led Ofsted’s work on ‘off-rolling’, bringing together Ofsted, the Department for Education and the Children’s Commissioner’s Office to improve the lives of marginalised students across England.

Before working for Ofsted, Dan held a wide range of roles in schools, trusts and universities. He was national leader for accountability for a large national multi academy trust, head of inclusion, director of teaching and learning and director of post-16 provision. Dan has a keen interest in leadership development, having led an international senior leader development programme, taught MA courses and supervised school leaders’ Master's dissertations.

Dan completed a BA (Hons) in English and Education at Cambridge University, followed by a PGCE in English and Drama and an MA and Doctorate in Education at Staffordshire University. Dan’s doctoral thesis examines school collaboration and its impact on students and school leaders.

Outside of work, Dan can be found playing piano (badly) and the drums, walking his dog, reading and cycling.