Governance and Documentation

Tony lives in Prestbury, is married and has four children. Having worked in industry and commerce for many years for organisations in the UK, North America, Continental Europe and India, Tony is now running his own consultancy business based in the North West of England. Tony is actively involved with a number of schools in the area, having recently ended a term as Chair of Governors at Alderley Edge Primary School and as Interim CEO of a developing MAT in the South Manchester area.

An active sportsman all his life, Tony is now actively involved in promoting the involvement of young people in sport through roles in local cricket and rugby clubs. Initially asked to join the Governing Board of The Fermain Academy, Tony is keen to use his skills and experience to help the YES Trust develop and grow and to have a positive impact on those children in its care.

Rob lives in Middlewich, Cheshire, with his partner Kathryn and daughter Sophie.  Rob has worked in food retailing for 32 years, many of these have been spent being a store manager for Tesco Stores Limited.  He has had the opportunity of working in many areas of Britain over the last 15 years and has been at the Macclesfield branch for over three years now.  Robs main responsibilities are to try and keep customers and colleagues as happy as possible whilst managing the bottom line profit.

Rob’s spare time is mainly spent to tinkering with his classic car and motorcycle collection and watching motorsport.  Rob was extremely pleased and flattered to be asked to be a governor of The Fermain Academy.  As Rob works in Macclesfield he wants to be a regular visitor to he academy and looks forward to using his skills to help in adding value that will benefit the academy.

Tim Haselwood is a Chartered Accountant who spent most of his professional career with Deloitte LLP specialising in external and internal audit, IT consultancy, Management Accounting and Financial controls. He then spent two years as Business Manager of Hollinhey Primary School in Sutton near Macclesfield and since September 2015 he has been the Business Director of Tytherington School in Macclesfield, where he is responsible for all the business aspects of the school. Tim is also a Chair of Governors at Hurdsfield Primary School in Macclesfield.

At The Yes Trust, Tim is a Trustee and he chairs the Resources and Audit Committee. He is married to Jan and they have two grown-up daughters, one who is teaching English in China and they also have two grandchildren. Jan and Tim live in Wincle near Macclesfield with a lazy golden retriever, some alpacas who cut the grass and a wind turbine.

Ian has 18 years’ experience in education and is currently the Headteacher of a GLD Secondary Special School (Generic Learning Disabilities). Ian completed training at Edge Hill in Lancashire with a specialism in Sports Science.

After achieving P.G.C.E, Ian has gained further qualification at Masters level in educational leadership and also achieved NPQH. Ian has previous senior leadership experience in both challenging mainstream and special secondary schools (SMEH) of which he has raised standards, helping move out of Special Measure categories into ‘Good’ grading.

Ian also has further expertise in safeguarding and positive handling leading implementation and review in multiple schools across the northwest.

Belinda currently works as the programme director for The Reach Programme, a charity based in Manchester. Through this work Belinda supports schools to reduce exclusions by working collaboratively through a research led process.

Belinda’s teacher training focused on the main subject SEN (BEd Primary) giving her expertise in a range of SEN and strategies to support the different needs. Belinda’s first management post was SEN co-ordinator. This gave her a greater insight to not only working with pupils with SEN but also parents/carers and the processes around assessment, diagnosis and the legal framework; additionally, Belinda worked for the Local Authorities (LA) as an SEN Officer. She gained expertise in working strategically to plan provision at a LA level for SEN and also support individual special schools.

Belinda’s first leadership post was deputy head in an all through MLD/ASD school. This involved teaching and leading across a range of staff and pupils with SEMH and Autism.

Belinda’s first Headship was in an all through MLD/ASD school. This involved teaching and leading across a range of staff and pupils with SEMH and Autism, successfully leading the school through significant changes from an all through MLD school to a primary MLD school with a specialist ASD unit. Oct 2007 Ofsted Good.

Belinda has also trained as an Ofsted Inspector this further developed her expertise through being part of the inspection teams for a number of special schools. Belinda has also successfully taken a school out of Special Measures in just under a year. As an Executive Head Belinda has been at the heart of the Free School programme, leading an AP in Blackburn (First Ofsted Report Good 2014) and leading on the latter stages of the pre-opening aspects of an SEMH Special School, including the pre-opening Ofsted and ROM. In both schools she was able to apply an extensive SEN knowledge to support a diverse range of pupils from primary to secondary.

Lisa, is a dedicated mindfulness practitioner with over 15 years’ experience working with children and young people and education professionals. She has spent over 10 years working in the education sector and the last 5 years helping teachers and school leaders to improve their whole school approach to mental health and wellbeing. Her experience of how barriers to learning impact the ‘whole child’ fuels her passion and determination to promote and enable environments where learning, wellbeing and relationships are accessible to all.

During Lisa’s time working with Visyon (a Children and Young Persons Mental Health Charity), she developed and delivered a range of wellbeing programmes, combining theory into evidence-based practice. Lisa is also trained to teach education staff to implement wellbeing programmes such as Friends Resilience, Incredible Years Classroom Management, Emotion Coaching U.K. and to deliver Paws.b (a leading mindfulness curriculum).

At present Lisa is coordinating the Wellbeing for Education Recovery Initiative across Cheshire East, working to a greater depth with individual settings to support them in embedding trauma recovery principles into their whole school approach.

Chris has worked in the technology sector for nearly 50 years. He started his own software company in the 70’s, selling it in the early 90’s, starting a new career in a global IT company, ICL.

Chris established a new business in 1999, working with organisations that wanted to win major bids, and in 2008 this morphed into Get to Great, his current business.

Chris is still actively working, but has created time over the last five years to undertake workshops with 6th Form Colleges, focusing on life skills. Since moving back to Cheshire two years ago, Chris has become involved with The Warrington & Cheshire Pledge, working with them as part of the government’s NCS scheme this summer.

Chris is passionate about education and helping young people realise their true potential. He has a deep understanding of change, and of running a business and all that that entails.

Wendy Bower-Choyce is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development who has spent much of her career supporting businesses with their people management and development challenges across a wide range of sectors.

She is a commercially focused business consultant with over 35 years of Human Resource Management, Training & Development experience with key areas of focus including Business Strategy & Growth, New Start-up businesses and Organisational Change.

Wendy spent her early career in Further Education at South Cheshire College during which time her roles included both “front line” (lecturer) as well as “people / pupil management roles.

More latterly she has set up and run a HR Consultancy Business (Choyce People) from offices based in Holmes Chapel until selling it to one of her clients in 2015.

Since then Wendy has continued to provide consultancy support to a number of businesses’  as well as most recently she has found time to become a Trustee for The Yes Trust and hopes to be able to provide support to both the existing and new schools within the Trust.

Nic was the founding Principal of The Fermain Academy, from design, to oversubscribed provision every year since opening, to ‘universal’ grade for the provision from the Local Authority, and culminating with an Outstanding Ofsted in 2018. Nic is now continuing to work closely with the DFE and EFSA as he embarks on a similar journey as the CEO of the YES Trust, opening The Axis Academy in September 2020 – a brand new SEN provision in Crewe for young people with a diagnosis for Social, Emotional and Mental Health needs.

Nic has a background of working with SEN and vulnerable students throughout his career overseeing many different aspects of the schools such as; covering the school development plan, SEF, curriculum, Behaviour & Welfare, Attainment planning, whole school data and completing the paperwork to expand to a MAT. Nic also wrote the application and bid that won one of his schools the SEN school of the year 2013/14, and more recently, The Fermain Academy’s shortlisting for Alternative Provision School of the Year.

Nic has a passion for developing all, continuing to lecture at three universities and multiple teaching school alliances to deliver CPD on Leadership at Senior and Middle levels, SEN in the classroom and early intervention and multiple elements on managing behaviour. Currently Nic has recently completed his National Professional Qualification for Executive Leadership (NPQEL) and is currently embarking on a Doctorate of Education (EdD) in Strategic Leadership for Education settings.

Chris was the founding Business Manager of The Fermain Academy in 2015, the founding Academy of the YES Trust, and played a lead role in establishing the systems and processes which underpin the great work the Academy does with its students.

Chris has a background working for the Local Authority within the Business Support and Schools Capital Strategy teams, and as a Business Manager / CFO in three Special and AP Trusts. He has experience in leading the conversion to Multi Academy Trust from maintained school at a previous setting, as well as setting up The Fermain Academy and The Axis Academy and bringing new Academies in to an existing MAT set up.

Committed to ensuring that the Trust’s Academies have the best possible staff, resources and environment in which to teach, Chris oversees finance, premises, HR/recruitment and operational leadership across the Trust.

Chris has recently achieved the CIPFA Level 7 Certificate in School Financial and Operational Leadership, and carries out the role of Chief Finance Officer for the Trust.

In post since September 2020 Helen is working as part of the Executive Leadership Team to ensure that the quality of curriculum and education across the Trust is maintained to an outstanding level and one which prepares young people to become fully functioning members of a global society.  Helen brings to the post a wealth of experience through coaching leaders, training teachers and promoting outstanding teaching and learning across Primary and Secondary settings, having led in both mainstream and alternative provision.  

Helen designed and delivered an innovative Home Office funded project, aimed at re-engaging and improving the life chances of some of our most vulnerable pupils, which was praised as being the only one nationally to achieve its aims. She has taken on failing schools which have then been judged to be Good by Ofsted. 

Helen puts pupils at the heart of all she does and brings not only enthusiasm and passion to everything she does, but an intelligence and depth of understanding of pedagogy which informs her training of teachers and leaders; she is herself an outstanding practitioner and uses her degree in French and Russian Studies to continue to inspire and motivate language learning and literacy in children and adults alike. Her passion for language teaching and literacy has led her to write and develop an exciting inter-generational language scheme which is now in the implementation stage; she hopes to map the impact of this as part of her EdD studies