This week’s movers and shakers include a former chicken-catcher, skydiver, competitive swimmer and award-winning cadet.
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.
Keziah Featherstone
Chair and treasurer, WomenEd
Start date: September
Current role: Executive trust leader, The Mercian Trust
Interesting fact: Keziah worked as a free-range chicken catcher in Somerset before she went to university. Everyone got paid based on how many chickens the full team caught. She lasted three shifts.
Martin Fitzwilliam
Director of schools, Birmingham City Council
Start date: September
Former role: National education director – primary, E-ACT
Interesting fact: Martin once went to the doctor with what he thought was a frozen shoulder, only to discover he’d been carrying a poorly-mended broken arm from a rugby match years earlier.
Helen Stevenson
Interim CEO, Transforming Lives Educational Trust
Start date: August
Current role: Director, Satis Education
Interesting fact: When Helen was 18, she spent a week at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival before heading to university and ended up going on a date with a lion tamer.
Jude Macdonald
Director, Wolf Inclusion
Start date: September
Current role: Director of inclusion, Keys Academies Trust
Interesting fact: Jude was a skydiver for many years. She has completed 1,300 skydives and has flown more hours in the wind tunnel than she cares to imagine.
Niall Gallagher
National education director – secondary, E-ACT
Start date: September
Former role: deputy national director – secondary, E-ACT
Interesting fact: Niall swam competitively for Liverpool as a teenager, stopping only when he stopped growing and everyone else continued to.
Sir Charlie Mayfield
Chair, Sparx Learning
Start date: October
Current role: Chair of tech training company QA and leading the government’s Keep Britain Working review
Interesting fact: Charlie was awarded the Sword of Honour at Sandhurst which is given to the Officer Cadet considered by the Commandant to be the best of the intake.
Former Michaela staffer joins Sunak’s charity
A founding teacher of Michaela Free School has joined former prime minister Rishi Sunak’s new charity to boost numeracy skills among schoolchildren.
Bodil Isaksen has been appointed chief programmes officer at The Richmond Project.
Set up by Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty, the charity aims to “support creative ways of tackling numeracy problems” including among “children struggling at school”.
Isaksen was a founding programme director at prison recruitment charity Unlocked Graduates and more recently led edtech maths platform Dr Frost.
“I will focus on practical, evidence-led programmes that help people use numbers in everyday settings at home, at work and in the community,” she said of the new role.
Lizzie Gaisman, a former charity and finance worker, has been appointed chief executive of the charity.
Sunak said “education is the closest thing we have to a silver bullet for changing lives … But when it comes to numeracy what we need most is cultural change. If we can give more people confidence with numbers, we can change lives and boost social mobility in this country.”
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