Our Trustees & Our Members
The Yardleys Board of Trustees
Our Trust Board is a diverse group of professionals who care deeply about the school, its staff and its students, and work closely in a professional capacity with the Headteacher.
Effective governance:
• ensures clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction
• holds executive leaders to account for the educational performance of the organisation and its pupils, and the effective and efficient performance management of staff
• oversees the financial performance of the organisation and makes sure its money is well spent
Neil Warner, Headteacher
Neil is a highly experienced leader with a range of expertise. He is currently headteacher of Yardleys School, a heavily-oversubscribed, outstanding academy in central Birmingham.
He was previously headteacher of the outstanding Arthur Terry School in Sutton Coldfield, an 11- 19 school with over 1800 pupils on roll and was instrumental in setting up the first cohort one teaching school and SCITT. In 2009, Neil led on the hard federation between Arthur Terry School and Stockland Green School. Stockland Green had the lowest results in the city at this time and the school has subsequently moved from special measures to good. Neil became the Director of Education for the Arthur Terry Learning Partnership in September 2017, responsible for the strategic leadership of five secondary schools. Under his tenure, all secondary schools improved their Ofsted ratings.
In liaison with the Director of Primary, Neil also supported nine primary schools and led the school improvement team, providing bespoke coaching and support to improve educational outcomes.
In addition, Neil is also a lead Ofsted inspector. In 2021, Neil was appointed a Director of the highly-esteemed John Taylor Multi Academy Trust. As a National Leader of Education, Neil regularly supports other headteachers and CEOs to support schools across the city and beyond. He supports Birmingham Education Partnership in conducting headteachers’ appraisals.
Jean Helme, Chair of Trustees & Member
Jean has been a governor at Yardleys for over 30 years, the last few years as Chair. For nine years she was also chair of an Infant & Junior School in the inner city of Birmingham as an elected parent governor.
Until her retirement in 2011, Jean was an educational social worker for Birmingham Education Welfare service, for several years as a Team Manager. She was also a Practice Educator for social work students. Since then she has been an independent panel member for a foster agency, a role which she finds extremely rewarding.
Jean is very involved with her eight grandchildren, the oldest of whom is taking his A levels and three of whom are at primary school. This has enabled her to keep in touch with education at different stages.
At Yardleys she has worked with four Headteachers, all with very different personalities but all of whom shared the same ethos and values that Yardleys embodies. She has acted as the safeguarding link governor for many years.
Jean has undertaken and continues to do much training in education and social work to keep up-to-date with current policies and research. This enables her to have informed discussions with the Headteacher and other staff and governors. She has been interviewed by Ofsted on a number of occasions, and is confident in doing so.
In her spare time, she enjoys gardening, dog walking, yoga, current affairs and is always reading.
Email - jean.helme@yardleys.bham.sch.uk
Helen Handford, Vice Chair of Trustees
Helen was delighted to return recently to Yardleys as a governor, having spent several enjoyable years as a teacher at the school from 2006 – 2011. She is a qualified specialist in English as an Additional Language (EAL), modern languages and whole-school literacy development. She has spent thirty years working in diverse, multilingual primary and secondary schools in the UK, Europe and Africa, and across all areas of the school curriculum.
Currently, Helen is a Language and Literacy Advisory Teacher for Wolverhampton City Council’s School Improvement Team and a trainer and consultant for The National Literacy Trust and the EAL Academy. Her work also extends to overseas contexts as a tutor trainer for Lexis Education’s literacy development programmes. Alongside her work in schools, Helen has been a university-based senior teaching fellow on initial teacher training programmes for secondary English and involved in both national and international research into language in learning.
Helen is married with two children and as a parent of a child with special educational needs, has extensive experience of working in partnership with many professionals to ensure the best possible outcomes for learners with additional challenges. When not working and reading books about language, she likes to swim, cycle, canoe, walk her two dogs and watch crime dramas, especially those in other languages.
Kibrest Suzie Bennett, Trustee
Suzie is an elected parent governor who cares deeply about her local community, for the school, children, parents and staff alike.
Timothy Gordon, Trustee
Tim has a B.Eng and PhD from Nottingham University and regularly brings engineering into his maths lessons at Yardleys, so that pupils know the why as well as the how.
He initially trained with Price Waterhouse, before moving to The Sage Group plc, a FTSE 100 business that writes business management, payroll and accounting software, used in businesses worldwide. Working in their training department for 20 years, he taught employees all over the UK in financial management, business awareness and payroll.
Tim is a father of three children, all of whom went through the state education system and onto success at university.
Outside of work he is a keen amateur cyclist, both on the road and mountain biking, and he competes at a local level.
Benn Gray, Trustee
Benn joined Yardleys School in 2004 as a member of support staff and feels lucky to have been part of the school as it has continued to develop and grow over the years. As Multimedia and Resources Manager, he is passionate about providing well equipped classrooms and a safe, secure environment for students and staff. He was appointed Staff Governor in 2016 and feels privileged to be part of the strategic development and growth of the school. As a governor he contributes his knowledge and experience of premises management and health and safety to the Finance, Premises and Staffing committee.
Outside work, he has an academic background in in Music Technology and has continued interest in composition and production.
Robert Johnson, Trustee
Bob spent his whole teaching career at Yardleys School, a total of 41 years’ service. He began as a Teacher of PE but soon discovered a passion for pastoral work and spent the majority of his career in a Head of Year/Head of House role. Following his retirement, he became a governor where his vast experience of behaviour management, attendance issues and alternative provision is invaluable.
Nadeem Khan, Trustee
Nadeem was a pupil at Yardleys School before going on to study IT at college. He is currently employed by Deutsche Bank and works as part of the Know your Customer/Anti-Money Laundering team. His career in banking stretches back over fifteen years and includes experience in portfolio management and customer relationships. He has been involved with local community work/youth clubs and supports his local mosque/community centre.
Edmund Lawrence, Trustee
Ed is a staff governor at Yardleys School. His role is Head of Year and Designated Safeguarding Lead and he is also an English and Media Teacher. He has extensive pastoral experience, having worked in this role at Yardleys since 2013 and previously in a similar role at another school within Birmingham.
He feels that Yardleys is a special place with a sense of real community and believes passionately that his job as staff governor and teacher is about allowing students to experience new things and achieve their potential.
Peter Lee, Trustee
Peter has been a governor at Yardleys for over thirty years, working with four Headteachers, initially on the site of the old Victorian school and more recently moving to the current, carefully designed new building.
When Peter first joined the governing body, he was working in Birmingham Education Department, one of the largest in England. His role was Assistant Education Officer for the central area. Here he gained much valuable experience, getting to know many different schools and assisting them in providing a worthwhile, life-enhancing education for all their students. This required resources in terms of money and fully trained, caring staff.
Before working in Birmingham, Peter spent ten years in Zambia as a District Officer then after training in London as a teacher, as Headteacher of a mixed secondary boarding school.
After retirement from the City’s Education Department in the 1980s he had more time to work with the other governors to get to know Yardleys, its staff and students, and to contribute through visiting to school and observing lessons as a link governor for various subjects.
Peter is proud to be a governor and enjoys his involvement in reading, assessing and questioning the reports which are presented to the full governing body and the finance committee, of which he has been a member for many years.
On a personal note, Peter was born in Birmingham, educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and has two children and three grandchildren.
Pat Saunders, Trustee
Pat has worked for over 40 years in education across all key stages; in various non-teaching roles. She have lived in the local community for over 30 years and has a passion for supporting young people to access the best opportunities available to them within education and in their future employment. Her specific interests as a trustee are to support in the areas of emotional/mental health and well-being and Special Educational Needs and Disability.
Saiqa Rafiq, Trustee
Saiqa is an elected parent trustee. She is a mother of three children. She has a background in retail and banking. Saiqa has been a governor at Yarnfield Primary School for the past four years and currently volunteers there. She is a caring individual and enjoys helping others. Saiqa is our link governor for mental health and wellbeing.
John Gardner, Member
John has been a governor at Yardleys School for over 28 years, becoming a parent governor when his youngest son started at Yardleys (all three of his sons had their secondary education at Yardleys School). He lives in the local area so has excellent knowledge of the community that Yardleys School serves. He was previously the Chair of Governors for thirteen years and has been part of the recruitment panel for a number of staff including three headteacher appointments, as well as dealing with a number of pupil exclusions, both permanent and fixed, over the years.
Now retired, he worked for HMRC for over 40 years and this experience, combined with previous voluntary work as treasurer of three local community organisations has provided him with a breadth of financial expertise which he uses to advantage on the Finance Committee, of which he has been a part for many years.
Sir Chris Stone, Member
Sir Christopher Stone has had an illustrious career in education. First appointed as a headteacher in the UK in 1995, Sir Chris went on to lead a number of schools. Successive Ofsted reports described his schools as making remarkable progress due to his ‘outstanding and inspiring leadership’. His schools were in the first cohort of Teaching Schools as well as the first of two SCITTs to be created.
Chris joined GEMS Education in November 2015 as Global Education Officer. He was responsible for overseeing the quality of teaching, learning and curricula across 86 GEMS schools globally, but before that he had specific responsibility for 49 schools across the UAE, serving 120,000 children and 8000 staff. He is widely recognised as having made outstanding contributions to education in a number of international settings. Prior to joining GEMS Education, he was CEO of the Arthur Terry Learning Partnership, a multi academy trust in the UK, which he led from from 2009 to 2015. In addition to leading schools, Sir Chris has provided leadership, guidance and training for principals and ministers in Vietnam, Singapore, Australia, Finland and Scotland on behalf of the British Council. He has been asked to provide support and guidance to successive UK governments, bringing him into regular contact with British Prime Ministers.
He was made a National Leader of Education in 2008. In 2012 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Birmingham City University for his work in educational leadership and for driving up educational standards in the region and in the Summer of 2018 he was another Honorary Doctorate by Liverpool Hope University.
Sir Chris received a knighthood from the Queen in January 2013, in recognition of his outstanding service to education regionally, nationally and internationally.
