This week’s movers and shakers include an Olympic wrestler, a Lego collector and a former tree-logger.
This column is our fortnightly guide to who is moving where in the schools community.
We are keen to hear about appointments at a senior level. Please send submissions for this section to news@schoolsweek.co.uk with ‘Movers and shakers’ in the subject line.
Mark Cocker
CEO at Education Partnership Trust (EPT)
Start date: September
Former role: Deputy CEO, EPT
Interesting fact: Mark competed in Olympic wrestling for Great Britain at the European and world championships, and the Commonwealth Games in 2010.
Rachel Hames
Education outreach manager at the Chartered Institution of Civil Engineering Surveyors (CICES)
Start date: September
Former role: Teacher, Cragside Church of England Primary School, Northumberland
Interesting fact: During the Covid pandemic, Rachel acquired a love of Lego and has built a sizeable collection. She now runs a small Lego business, sharing her passion with other likeminded enthusiasts.
Ben Dunne
Director of early years, education and skills at Bury Council
Start date: September
Former role: Assistant director of school improvement and pupil progression at Islington Council
Interesting fact: Ben worked as a tree logger when travelling in Australia a lifetime ago. The hardest challenge was disguising his arachnophobia to unforgiving workmates every time a hand-sized Huntsman spider crawled up his arm.
Featured mover
The founder of Oak National Academy will lead a new “delivery unit” for the Department of Health and Social Care tasked with cutting hospital wait times and improving access to GPs.
Matt Hood has been appointed as senior adviser to health secretary Wes Streeting, Schools Week revealed this week.
He will lead a new ‘delivery unit’ at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), tasked with “tracking and challenging” delivery of key NHS targets such as bringing down hospital waiting times and improving access to GPs.
A previous job advert for a director role of the delivery unit described it as bringing a “laser-like focus on delivering the reform needed to drive improvement generally across health and care and specifically on the three things that surveys show matter most to the public”.
It said the small team would include a mix of internal and external recruits, including those with knowledge of the health system but also “expertise on delivering strategic and cultural change and policy development and delivery”.
Direct ministerial appointment
Hood has been appointed as a direct ministerial appointment – meaning his role will sit within the secretary of state’s office. He started the role, which is paid, last month.
DHSC said Streeting had “made clear his plan for delivery during a period of reform and transformation of the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England”.
It added: “Matt will work with the department’s delivery unit to help ensure the Government and department deliver on its commitments, coordinate across the health and care system and provide advice on emerging challenges.”
Hood, whose background is working in education, was approached for comment. The DHSC said he had held “senior roles in public service delivery and brings direct experience of leading organisations during periods of significant change”.
Hood stood down from Oak, a government curriculum quango, earlier this year.
It is understood he has stepped away from other education positions too, including Ofsted’s curriculum reference group.
Hood’s husband, Josh MacAlister, was appointed children’s minister in September.
Since leaving Oak and prior to his new job, Hood worked with a charity to implement academy reforms in Australia.
Prior to Oak, he was chief education officer at teacher training provider Ambition Institute and was an assistant headteacher in Morecambe, after training with Teach First.
Hood was awarded an OBE for services to education in 2020.
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