Ann is the Director of the Grand Union Training Partnership which offers both primary and secondary PGCE with Masters Accreditation. She is experienced in setting up training courses and additional subjects, responding to and managing change within ITE, managing teams of leaders and School Based Tutors across a wide partnership of schools and co-ordinating quality assurance procedures. Additionally Ann is the subject lead for the MFL PGCE with extensive experience in planning and delivering subject training as well as observing trainees. Other areas of expertise include coaching and mentoring and assessment for learning.

Helen has been a Maths teacher for 7 years and she has been Faculty Leader of Maths for the last two years, she leads a very successful department who have outstanding exam results, promoting team-work, interpersonal skills and imaginative teaching ideas. Helen has delivered teacher training sessions to Maths Initial Teacher trainee’s through the Grand Union Training Partnership and has been an NQT mentor.

Helen specialises in the C/D borderline at GCSE level and particularly with intervention and teaching strategies that can be used with these students. She is also adept at using data to enhance results and is an EdExcel GCSE examiner so is able to give advice to both students and teachers as to how marks can be both lost and gained as well as being able to moderate in-house exams to ensure data gathered is accurate.

Helen is currently supporting Maths departments within schools that are in challenging circumstances; in this school-to-school support role, she has shared her maths expertise, coached staff and modelled best practice to improve teaching and learning as well as giving strategic guidance on leadership to the Heads of Departments. Helen is also involved with working with teachers from a Secondary school in Singapore, in order to share and develop international practices in Mathematics.

Until recently Janet was a primary school teacher with experience of a variety of schools from large primaries with nurseries to smaller faith schools, both in London and Northamptonshire.  Some of these were schools which had been identified as requiring improvement by Ofsted and she was part of the Leadership Teams which successfully improved their performance and outcomes.  Janet has been teaching for 25 years and retired from headship in April 2014 to undertake the role of Deputy Director at the Grand Union Teaching Partnership where her prime responsibility was leading the Primary PGCE course until 2019. Since 2019 Janet has been the Lead on Primary Assessment Only courses.

Janet’s most recent school experience was as head teacher of a large primary school in Northamptonshire which she helped move from being a school causing serious concerns to a school judged by Ofsted as being Good with many outstanding features.  She was also closely involved in working with other local schools sharing areas of good practice.

Janet is experienced in many areas of teaching and leadership including raising standards of teaching, use of data, behaviour management, school development planning and finance. She is able to offer support in a variety of ways including coaching sessions with middle leaders, team teaching, leading staff meetings and working with Senior Leadership Teams on key policies and action plans.

Lisa is currently an Assistant Headteacher at Sponne School with responsibilities for the curriculum and timetable and driving aspirations. For over 5 years she led the mathematics subject training for the SWAN ITT partnership based at Sponne (GUTP) and was previously a deputy director of the scheme. Her roles have included extensive mentoring and coaching of both trainees and established teachers and through the SWAN teaching alliance Lisa has facilitated both the middle leaders’ course and the NPQSL.

The teaching and learning of mathematics is a key area of her specialism and using evidence-based practice to improve the learning outcomes for students is of particular interest to her. Lisa is regularly graded in her own teaching as outstanding using Ofsted criteria and is passionate about maths teaching.

Lisa’s SLE work includes conducting faculty reviews and analysing the strengths and weaknesses of a department with a view to formulating and implementing an action plan and providing support throughout the process. The key feature of the guidance that Lisa has provided to the schools in challenging circumstances has been strategic leadership which has led to improvements in their results. Lisa has worked with mathematics teachers from Singapore to ensure international best practice can be shared between schools/countries and is committed to improving the standard of maths teaching in schools and the learning experience of all students

Maria Hutchinson is currently an education consultant, specialising in mentoring and training NQTs and unqualified teachers and supporting Literacy Coordinators and Upper Primary Leaders. Previously, she worked in various leadership roles – Deputy Headteacher in an outstanding primary school in Bedford, Deputy Headteacher in a junior school in Wellingborough and Assistant Headteacher in a middle school in Bedford. In the latter role, she was responsible for the curriculum, teaching and learning and helped move the school from special measures to ‘good’. During that time her teaching was graded outstanding by Ofsted.

Maria has been in education for over 20 years and during this time she has taught the full range of primary subjects mainly in Key Stage 2. More recently, she has taught Literacy in Years 5 and 6 and she has had lots of experience preparing pupils for SATs tests. In her leadership roles, she has been responsible for standards, overseeing intervention programmes, pastoral support and developing activities focusing on parental engagement. Maria has also worked for a local authority as NQT Coordinator. She has achieved a Masters in Education Studies; her dissertation focused on EAL: New arrivals. Maria has also achieved NPQH; she completed a project on more able and talented pupils in upper KS2 - English.

Susan is a highly experienced practitioner within science specialising in chemistry. She is currently Faculty Leader in Science with additional whole school teaching and learning responsibility. She has had wide experience in school management roles both pastoral and subject based.  She has been pivotal in improving results in science at Sponne, leading the faculty to an 18% increase in results at GCSE. During her career she has been a SCITT mentor through the GUTP, whole school G and T Coordinator and a coach and mentor for improving teachers, her skills leading to the improvement of teaching and learning.  Susan has strategized and initiated whole school programmes including the Study Room and the introduction of dedicated mentors.

Emma Harris is currently an Assistant Headteacher at Sponne School, following her role as a Learning Coordinator and Head of Key Stage 4 English, at Oakgrove School.  Within her current role, she is the Designated Safeguarding Lead and the Designated Teacher for looked after and previously looked after children. Emma is also responsible for overseeing the school’s behaviour, attendance and pastoral systems, in addition to her English teaching role.  Emma has extensive experience of child protection; she keeps up to date with current legislation, and regularly attends training sessions and multi agency meetings, which she then uses to implement new systems and procedures.

Both at Sponne, and Oakgrove, Emma has led whole school and governor training, both on safeguarding, and behaviour and has played a strategic role in the creation of behaviour systems, policies and procedures. She has experience of dealing with difficult students, and has helped staff to improve their behaviour management. Prior to starting at Sponne, Emma has also been English KS4 Intervention Coordinator, joint Second in English, Head of Parent Relations and Transition Coordinator.  In 2014-15 Emma attended the English Leader Network meetings with the Denbigh Teaching School Alliance – this enabled her to work with other schools and discuss the changing National Curriculum. Emma was responsible for preparing the English department for the changes to the Key Stage 4 Curriculum. Now at Sponne, Emma represents Sponne at the Swan Behaviour Partnership meetings. Emma has a Masters in Education, specialising in Leadership and Management with the Open University

Sara-Jane is currently Lead Teacher in English at Sponne School, following her role as KS3 Progress Coordinator at Guilsborough School. Her current role involves developing and supporting the teaching and learning within the English department at Sponne as well as regular school to school support. Prior to her current role, Sara-Jane has also been a SCITT and NQT mentor, G&T coordinator, Chairwoman of the Better Learning Group at Guilsborough School and trainer for the Grand Union Training Partnership’s SCITT course and SWAN network. Her expertise involve the coaching, mentoring and training of new and experienced staff; devising intervention programmes for all student abilities and sharing and embedding the latest initiatives in teaching and learning.

Hazel has been a Primary School Teacher for many years. She is an outstanding teacher who has had experience teaching across both key stages. She has experience of working in a number of Primary Schools in South Northants. Currently, she teaches in a mixed age class in a small federated village Primary Academy in Northamptonshire.

In her current school, Hazel is the maths lead. She has been involved in writing whole school Maths plans for the New National Curriculum, and developing and implementing these, along with other teaching resources across the federated schools. She has experience of supporting and mentoring staff with teaching and planning.Hazel is involved in mentoring and supporting students and newly trained staff, and most recently has been involved in delivering county training sessions to NQTs on assessment. She is an LA moderator for Key Stage 1. She has experience in supporting local schools in assessment and moderation, delivering training and has developed materials to aid teachers with year 2 teacher assessment for the interim standards in both mathematics and writing.

Clare has been teaching for many years in both large and small schools in Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire. She is an outstanding teacher who has taught in both key stages, including year 6 and year 2. Currently she is Deputy Head of a school on the edge of Northamptonshire and is responsible for maths and assessment.

Clare has been an ICT lead for over 10 years. While holding this position she has researched and sourced the computing infrastructure for teaching within the school, which led to the implementation of a whole new system. With the new curriculum she has trained and developed the staff in the new aspects, so coding is now taught confidently and regularly to all children.

Clare has been a maths lead for over 13 years working in three different schools. While in her last school she worked with two other schools, one day a week, to support their new maths leads. In both schools the attainment in maths improved and in one school OFSTED noticed that the role of the maths lead had developed so that she had become involved in monitoring and evaluating the teaching and learning. In her own schools she has written and implemented a new calculation policy and maths plan which is in line with the new national curriculum and has a focus on mastery. Clare has helped staff understand the new assessment in maths and has led the implementation of the systems we now use. She has supported and worked with new maths leads within our academy and has helped them develop their skills and the maths within their schools.

Assistant Head at Magdalen College School in Brackley, Northants, a large semi-rural secondary school.
Current responsibilities include: behaviour, welfare, attendance, progress of years 7 – 11. Line management of the Pastoral teams, Leaders of Learning and Inclusion.
Designated Senior Lead for safeguarding for years 7 – 13
Responsible for transition from KS2 to KS3 and the Primary Behaviour Support Project

Previous responsibilities have included:
Assistant Head responsible for professional development, deployment of staff and overview of data.
Head of PCSHE
Head of Year
Assistant KS 3 co-ordinator
Achieved: NPQH and have coached several members of staff through Leading from the Middle and NPQH programmes

Andy is currently at Guilsborough Academy and has enjoyed many opportunities to develop professionally but also as a whole school leader. Andy has been teaching since 2001 and experienced a variety of challenges and successes. Having been a head of department and head of faculty he has seen the ever-developing challenges for the curriculum and how this impacts on students. His previous school focus was in the pastoral side school life from being a Head of Year for KS3 and Head of Sixth. As a recently appointed Principal examiner he has invaluable knowledge and understanding of the deeper meaning of assessment objectives but also how this fits into every day AFL in the classroom. His core expertise is an SLE is History/NQT development which involves ensuring high quality schemes of work and assessment are tailored to enable rapid progress for all learners at every key stage. This includes extensive knowledge of the new A Levels and GCSE including what core content and skills are expected to mark accurately to the assessment objectives. Andy has background with ITT, assessment and leadership which means he has a wealth of knowledge to enable him to challenge and support staff at all points in their careers.

Steph Abbotts is an exemplar Early Years Practitioner and an outstanding teacher and leader in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). She is currently Deputy Head teacher at The Radstone Primary School in Brackley and prior to this worked as an EYFS leader at Nicholas Hawksmoor Primary School.

With her in depth knowledge of EYFS Steph is heavily involved in supporting the SWAN Teaching School with specialist network meetings. Throughout her career Steph has supported and mentored both colleagues in her own school and other schools to improve Early Years good practice and has been a school based mentor for PGCE students.

Steph has played a key role in the improvement of EYFS settings in other schools; reviewing practice through evaluation and data analysis.  She is an experienced trainer with experience of delivering the Outstanding Teacher Programme.

Sam is the Head of Department for Physical Education at Guilsborough School and is an experienced GCSE PE practical moderator. She has extensive experience of leading large teams to drive improvements using a variety of teaching and learning strategies and is skilled in embedding new assessment and schemes of learning alongside rigorous data analysis and quality assurance.

Sam has supported other schools to drive improvements through the completion of departmental and whole school reviews as well as supporting staff through personalised CPD programmes with students at the heart of the process.

Sam has led a number of projects including Life Skills days (PSHE), student voice and oversight of pupil premium funding and intervention. She has implemented whole school staff coaching triangles and development of coach/facilitators as well as being an NQT and trainee teacher mentor.

Beth has worked at Guilsborough Academy since the beginning of her teaching career in the field of Physical Education. Since then she has embraced opportunities to develop her leadership ability. In particular being the teaching and learning lead for the PE department, Deputy and Head of Sixth form and an Assistant Principal responsible for teaching and learning. Beth has been involved with continued professional development and teacher training (ITT/NQT/RQT) and is now a Specialist Leader of Education in Initial Teacher Training (ITT).

For many years Beth has been heavily involved in ITT and worked with numerous ITT providers including the Grand Union Teacher Training Partnership. Beth has assisted with the development of the PE GUTP SCITT programme, running key subject and general specific sessions to trainees, quality assuring mentor standards, observing trainees and being a master’s marker for the University of Leicester. More recently developing the GUTP Guilsborough Satellite hub with the SCITT programme to increase recruitment of trainees.

Becky is currently Assistant Head of Humanities and Social Sciences and Lead on Professional Development at Campion School. As Lead on Professional Development, she supports trainees, newly qualified and unqualified teachers by delivering an induction programme which includes a range of opportunities for development such as training sessions observations and mentor meetings. In addition, Becky oversees and delivers some of Campion’s staff training thus ensuring that teachers can access appropriate training to support their continuing professional development. Within this role, Becky has developed considerable experience in providing coach and mentoring designed at supporting teachers in making progress on areas for development. As Assistant Head of Humanities and Social Sciences, Becky oversees curriculum and assessment at key stage 3 and is working with both the Head of Faculty and Subject Leads to improve teaching and learning within the faculty.

In addition to teaching RS for 20 years, Becky has a number of years experience of leading an RS department at Campion, Walton High and Sponne. She continues to create schemes of learning, assessment, homework and lesson resources which are used across the department. Becky has worked to implement the new AQA GCSE both as an examined course taken by all students and as an option course. She has also taught RS A Level and has recently been instrumental in introducing Philosophy as a subject at Key Stage 5. Becky has particular expertise in curriculum and lesson planning with a focus on pace and progress.

Gail is Head of the MFL Faculty at Rushden Academy and an experienced MFL teacher. Throughout her time at Rushden Gail has re-built the faculty and overhauled the curriculum, making some radical changes along the way.  Her experience as an Examiner for Edexcel has been utilised at Rushden alongside the changes in how languages are taught.

In addition to her Head of Faculty and teaching roles Gail has mentored ITT trainees and NQT’s for MFL and whole school. Initially taking on the ITT Co-ordinators role before becoming the Director of Learning which includes the responsibility for the induction of all new staff as well as those new to teaching.

Peter has been a primary school teacher for over 12 years. He is an outstanding practitioner who has had experience teaching both key stages. He has worked for primary schools in both Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire and has had a number of leadership roles. 

He is currently the senior teacher and STEM leader in a village school.  He has worked successfully in developing science, technology, engineering and mathematics, ensuring meaningful links are made and developing the love of STEM subjects. Peter has experience of supporting, mentoring and coaching staff with their teaching and learning. This has included helping NQTs and trainee teachers. He has been involved in delivering mathematics training sessions to GUTP trainee teachers for the primary course, which trainees found very helpful.

Karen has been a primary school teacher for many years working predominantly in Key Stage 2. She is an outstanding teacher who currently teaches Year 6 at Bridgewater Primary School in Northamptonshire.

With her passion and educational background being science, Karen has led this subject for most of her teaching career. In her current school, she leads a research team and has implemented many new initiatives based on up-to-date research. She has identified a termly focus for her team and has supported staff with resources and ideas to help implement these.  She has experience of mentoring and supporting staff with effective teaching and planning techniques and evaluating the impact this has on the pupils’ learning. During her role as science lead, she has supported a local school in piloting a project for the Primary Science Teaching Trust.  This project provides teachers with the tools necessary to elicit the children’s knowledge and understanding in science and use this to inform their planning.  She rolled this programme out in her own school through whole school INSET sessions and has subsequently guided and coached staff in implementing the model.

Karen has supported staff with science assessment both within her own school and within her cluster.  She has led moderating sessions and supported staff in identifying what greater depth would look like within this subject.

Karen has run many successful specialised science weeks within her school to keep the profile of the subject high amongst children and staff. 

Andrew Henry-Moore is currently a School Lead, Key-Stage 2 Teacher and Literacy Lead at Tiffield Primary School- a small rural school, which is part of a larger federation of rural schools (The Forest Federation). Within his current role, he has experience teaching Year Two through to Six. Andrew has a specialism in delivering English lessons to mixed age classes and a real passion for improving writing results. He has provided support to everyone from senior leaders, through to subject leads and NQTs in these areas. Furthermore, he has expertise in developing and modelling high quality writing across Year Six as evident in the high writing progress scores achieved at the end of Key-Stage 2 in the 2017-18 academic year.

Andrew is a great advocate of short burst writing within schools and is always delighted to share his insights and practice to help develop and foster best practice amongst staff in this area. As a Specialist Leader in Education, Andrew continues to keep up to date with the latest educational research within in this area and has attended a range of courses in coaching and delivering high quality writing and reading within the primary setting.