South West Hub Governance Board

The South West Hub Board of Avanti Schools Trust will oversee the governance of all three schools in the region:

  • Avanti Gardens School, Bristol
  • Avanti Park School, Frome
  • Avanti Hall School, Exeter

Terms of Reference (ToR)

The Board of Trustees confirmed a revised version of the ToR for the SW Hub Board at its meeting in March 2020. A copy of these ToR is available via this link.

SW Hub Board members

The AST Board has appointed the following members to the SW Hub Board:

Dr Molly Warrington (Chair)

Molly Warrington is a Director of Avanti Schools Trust and until recently was Chair of the Standards Committee. Until retiring in 2015 Molly was a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography at the University of Cambridge and Director of Studies in Geography at King’s College. The main focus of her research was on gender and education, including co-directing a large-scale, 4-year, government-funded project exploring strategies addressing gender and achievement. Molly is currently organising an action research project with Avanti teachers, looking at both gender and the value of yoga in the curriculum.

Suzanne Flack

Suzanne Flack is the CEO of The Redstart Learning Partnership which is based in South Somerset. The Trust was set up in 2015 as a sponsor and to date has sponsored 7 inadequate schools. Suzanne started her headship career in Derby in January 2000 working in a challenging inner-city school. Suzanne has achieved outstanding OFSTED grades in both of her substantive headships and she works as an NLE across the South West as well as leading the Redstart Teaching School. In 2017 she was elected onto the South West Head Teacher Board. She has also worked in governance roles in 3 Trusts in the area.

Stephen Howe

Stephen enrolled on the Teach First programme in 2007, working as an English teacher at a maintained school in South Manchester. He then joined the Civil Service Fast Stream and covered a range of roles in the Department for Transport, primarily working on railway and aviation policy issues, with one shorter placement working on renewable energy policy. Stephen secured a career break from the Civil Service in 2015 in order to return to teaching, working as a teacher and middle leader in academies within south London and Somerset, before recently re-joining the Department for Education as a team leader in the ESFA and, latterly, the RSC’s office. Stephen lives in Devon with his wife and one-year-old daughter. His passions include cricket, poetry, surfing and hiking.

 

Andrew Quale

Andrew Quayle is a Chartered Accountant by profession but has recently retired having spent some 38 years working in the beer industry, both in the UK and overseas. Having qualified in 1976 with Grant Thornton in Liverpool he joined Whitbread plc and spent 18 years in a variety of roles in their pub and beer businesses. In 1996 he joined the Dutch brewer Heineken N V as Finance Director of their Irish business, based in Cork. This was followed by similar roles in locations as diverse and as interesting as Amsterdam, San Juan-Puerto Rico, Bucharest and Moscow until retiring in 2016. For the past three years, he has been a Governor of Steiner Academy, Exeter and also Chairs the Governors of his local primary school in South Molton, North Devon.

Jo Evans

Jo is CEO of St Christopher’s (Primary) Multi- Academy Trust. She has over 23 years of experience of school leadership including four years as a CEO. She has a strong research background, including serving on the board of the Cambridge Primary Review Trust and as a national Lesson Study advocate. She has written leadership training and was instrumental in the development of the Church of England’s NPQH. Success as a lecturer and facilitator-led to contributing a chapter “Aims into Practice” to a Routledge 4th edition book.

 

Minutes of the meeting

18th May 2020

23rd March 2020 

27th January 2020

25th November 2019

16th December 2019

Contact the SW Hub Board

If you have an issue you would like to raise with the SW Hub Board you can contact the Clerk via the following email address:

[email protected]

Alternatively, you may send a letter addressed to the Chair of the SW Hub Board:

Avanti Schools Trust

Wemborough Road,

Stanmore

HA7 2EQ

 

If you have a grievance, please refer to the MAT’s complaints policy which can be found via the following link:

https://avanti.org.uk/governance/