Our Trustees
The Trustees are ultimately accountable for the standards of education in each of the academies in the Trust and also hold responsibility as Directors of the company. The trustees are currently Julie Fletcher (Chair), Paul Bunn (CEO and Accounting Officer), Kath Dunning and Nick O'Dell.
Julie Fletcher (Chair of Trustees)
Julie has been a parent governor for Bunwell Primary School since June 2018 and was previously a governor for four years at a primary school in Northamptonshire. She was appointed Trustee of Cooperative Education East in June 2019 and became Chair in February 2020. She has worked most of her career in the financial services industry across business research and HR roles. She is currently working for Norfolk Police in a specialist HR Reward role. Her skills and experience include research and analysis, project management, communications, recruitment, employee pay and benefits and HR policies.
Central Business Team
The purpose of our Trust is to run a lean and efficient back office staff. We charge a central contribution from each school but they are in charge and responsible for their own budgets, which is central to our principle of autonomy which is key to what we do. Our central team are there to facilitate discussion and provide day to day support with back office functions including: finance, budgeting planning and processing, HR and payroll administration, supplier services and procurement. Our central back office functions run smoothly and efficiently allowing our head teachers and senior leaders to focus on driving education forward through solid teaching and learning. These central processes are regularly audited and have recently been confirmed to be examples of ‘industry leading best practice’.
Steven Dewing - Chief Financial Officer
Steven Dewing - Chief Financial Officer joined Sapientia Education Trust in September 2021. Having trained at Larking Gowen as an AAT and ACA audit and accounts junior, he subsequently moved into private healthcare and then the NHS. Steven has over 20 years’ experience in Finance including financial planning, business partnering, statutory reporting, service transformation and process improvement.
He leads the Finance Team and is supporting the development of the team and the Trust’s financial processes to ensure a high quality of support to schools.
Michelle Davis (Finance and Admin)
Michelle works on a day-to-day basis to support the finance and admin function for all of the schools in the Trust. She has a background working for over 15 years in schools’ finance, and before that in the banking sector. Michelle provides a valuable additional operational layer between the schools, suppliers and customers. In her spare time she loves to read, going for long walks and enjoys doing jigsaw puzzles.
Clerking
We enjoy the benefit of professional clerking services supplied by 'Entrust' (entrust-ed.co.uk). We value the expertise, advice and guidance which they provide to the Board on all governance matters which ensures all our schools comply with the law and statutory guidance. Their support helps to safeguard the welfare of your pupils
Working Together
Being in a MAT means our schools can make limited budgets go further, especially when it comes to staff recruitment and we have developed several shared posts across the Trust. In the past our schools have found they may have the budget to employ someone one day per week, but that is not attractive employment offer. Therefore, we have seen by pooling resources we have been able to take on the following staff who provide valuable support across our schools.
Natasha Clarke (Deputy Head)
Natasha joined our trust as a support for our three Head teachers and to help steer our trust with its cooperative values. She endeavours to ensure the holistic needs of all of our children are at the heart of all decisions to enable them to thrive in life after Primary school. Natasha champions Early Years and is developing a strong Early Year Foundation Stage (EYFS) team across the trust where our children are able to secure the strong foundations needed to build future learning on. She helps to guide and advise our EYFS staff in creating environments to encourage curiosity, enjoyment and self-initiated learning.
Phonics has been an area of development across the trust and one in which Natasha has introduced a successful new synthetic phonics system where children are engaged and enthused by regular phonics sessions. Training for all staff members, advising on learning and guiding the embedding across the trust has led to successful phonics mornings for staff and an improvement in phonetic knowledge of our children.
Natasha also leads Special Educational Needs (SEN) at Banham as their SENCO and works alongside our SENCOs Mrs K.Brookes and Mrs J. Jarrett to ensure we provide for all of our children to succeed and thrive. She is also working to create a SEN working team with local Primary schools to ensure we are providing the best possible practice.
Steven Tuttle (Caretaker / Site Supervisor)
Our schools have been there for around 150 years and have been extended and added to over time. We are custodians of the buildings which are central to their communities and villages, and want to ensure they remain in good repair and order, not only for the current cohort of children who enjoy them but for future generations too. Steven, who came to us from another local MAT, therefore spends his time managing the ongoing maintenance of the Trust's buildings and is never happier than with hammer and screwdriver in hand fixing things so that the schools can keep being used safely. He does the unglamorous jobs so that staff can just focus on delivering outstanding lessons. Steven also performs regular statutory checks such as legionnaires testing, fire alarm testing and PAT testing. His input and skills mean we have made financial savings when compared to contracting this service out, which has allowed us to reinvest money back into the schools.
Tracey Mitchell (Parent Support Advisor)
With over 25 years of experience working in education, I began my career as a Teaching Assistant before discovering a deep passion for the pastoral side of supporting children. This led me to become an Emotional Learning Support Assistant, where I focussed on helping students navigate their emotional and social development. An opportunity later arose in school to support parents directly, and I embraced the chance to broaden my impact. I am now working for the three schools in the Trust continuing to do what I love - supporting children and their families.
Outside of school I enjoy walking, lifting weights and sending time with my granddaughters.
WORKING WITH US
The freedom of being in a MAT means we can work with many local suppliers who share our vision and values