Central services and departments
Trust-wide best practice
There are a number of Trust-wide roles and responsibilities that function across all of our family of schools to ensure consistency and best practice.
Safeguarding Officer
Lisa Hatcher
As Safeguarding Officer Lisa is responsible for leading and promoting excellent safeguarding practice across the Trust as well as providing staff training across the schools.
Lisa has worked within the Trust for 18 years including working within the Early Years class at Grangewood as the Pre School Co-ordinator where she first developed the idea of offering extended opportunities for children and support sessions for families.
Lisa is an experienced NSPCC trainer, an accredited Cygnet trainer and a member of the local authority Autism Partnership board and DSR Risk register in Hillingdon.
Family Services Manager
Sophia Barton
Sophia’s role as Family Services Manager involves the delivery of a core offer of extended opportunities to pupils within the Trust.
Family Services also offers extensive parent courses and workshops supported by a range of professionals.
Therapy Service Manager
Alison Futerman
Alison is a qualified Speech and Language Therapist and has worked within our schools in the Eden Academy Trust since 1995.
In her role as Therapy Service Manager, Alison has responsibility for the shaping and delivering of the Physiotherapy, Speech and Language Therapy (SaLT), Occupational Therapy (OT) and Creative Arts Therapy Services.
Alison works with the Clinical Leads of each therapy service to identify student’s therapeutic needs in order to create a plan to support their needs and develop their skills further. As well as managing the therapy service, Alison still maintains a clinical caseload in SaLT. Alison is passionate that every child in the Trust finds a way to express themselves.
Since qualifying in 1995 Alison has specialised in working with people with learning disabilities and complex needs. She has worked in a range of settings including: Specialist AAC centre, community adults with learning disability services, special schools, mainstream school, units for adults with challenging behaviour, transition work from long stay institutions, autism and ADHD advisory service.
Head of Governance, Policy & Compliance
Keith Holroyd
Keith has nearly 40 years’ experience in school and Trust governance, having been a school governor, local authority support governor, and independent consultant before joining the Trust.Â
As the Trust’s governance professional, Keith leads on the development and implementation of all our governance arrangements, as well as acting as clerk to the Trustees and Members.Â
Keith also leads on our policy management and compliance arrangements.
Workforce Development Manager
Alistair Crawford
Alistair is the Workforce Development Lead for the Trust. Prior to this, he worked in a range of specialist and mainstream schools across the East Midlands as a teacher, senior leader and Director of Inclusion.
As an experienced Specialist Leader of Education and School / Multi-Academy Trust reviewer, Alistair has supported many schools and colleagues to develop their SEND provision and improve outcomes for young people with additional needs.
A big passion for Alistair is raising aspiration for the amazing young people we work with and he is currently working with a range of national partners to support pathways to employment and participation in elite sports.
Alistair is a member of the regional team for Whole School SEND (EMSYH), Co Chair of the National Network of Specialist Provision (NNSP), Specialist lead for Oak National Academy and most recently sat on the ERG for the new NPQ SENCO.
Teacher Development Lead
Gill Smith
Gill taught in special schools for over 25 years specialising in pupils with severe or profound and multiple learning disabilities. For the past 12Â years she has worked for the Professional Development Service at the Eden Academy Trust. This included writing and delivering materials for the LEAPS (Learning Education and Achievement of pupils in special schools) programme to support teachers in transferring from mainstream to special schools .
She now uses these 35 plus years of experience and specialises in Teacher Development. She works with the National Institute of Teaching writing and delivering the materials for the Post Graduate Teacher Apprenticeship (SEND) focusing sessions on skills necessary to teach pupils who have profound, complex or severe learning disabilities.Â
Gill is also involved in the ECT programme for teachers in special schools. She has worked with UCL to supplement their materials with special school case studies and facilities online learning sessions with Teach West London for those ECTs all working in special schools.Â
Gill is passionate about ensuring all pupils make the best possible progress and shares her many years of experience to ensure this continues.  
Strategic Project Manager
David Groves
David has specialised in school organisation and pupil place planning for over 20 years and has worked with a range of councils and academy trusts.
David provides project management for the Trust’s free school projects, new schools joining the trust, and school expansions including satellite sites.
David leads the school organisation, consultation, and legal aspects of those projects, working closely with Headteachers and colleagues in the central teams and liaising with DfE and local authorities.
Senior HR Advisor
Dawn Duffy
Dawn joined the Trust in March 2021. Dawn has over 20 years experience in Human Resources as a HR Manager for a large national fostering agency and then for a small multi academy trust in London. Â
As Senior HR Advisor, Dawn works closely with senior leaders to devise and implement the HR strategy.
ICT Manager
Sumit Parmar
Sumit has over 22 years’ experience in the IT industry, 14 in the corporate sector and 8 in Education. He has extensive experience in core IT technical skills, management of vendors, projects, IT & Office procurement and IT Contracts; IT strategy planning and implementation, and development, planning and design of IT infrastructure and data protection.
As the ICT Manager for the Eden Academy Trust, Sumit provides innovative solutions for everyday work environments to support the vision and objectives of the Trust. Sumit works closely with the Trust’s Leadership Team, to make sure the needs of all pupils are met giving them the very best opportunity to achieve.
Business Manager for the Northern Hub
Amy Forrest
Amy works closely with the central finance team, school leads and other service managers within the Trust to manage the northern schools’ finances and develop strategies for school improvement.
Business Manager for the Southern Hub
Ranjan Chippra
Ranjan joined Eden Academy Trust in June 2023 as the Business Manager for the Trust’s southern hub.
Ranjan has over 12 years of experience within the education sector mainly in an multi academy trust, areas of expertise is school finance and operations.
She works closely with the finance team, school leads and other service managers within the Trust to develop strategies for school improvements both short and long term.
Finance Manager
Susan Catterson
Sue has over 30 years of experience in finance. After a successful career in corporate banking she moved to finance roles within education and was a key member of the finance team during the initial creation of the Eden Academy Trust in 2012. Since then, Sue has overseen the introduction of additional schools to the Trust and the development of the Central Finance Team.
Sue now manages a team of 5 who ensure the smooth and efficient running of all aspects of finance for the Trust including budgeting, payroll and procurement.
Sue has used her experience and knowledge to develop central finance procedures and continues to innovate and work with the Director for Finance and Operations to move the team forward.
Marketing and Communications Manager
Catherine Roper
Catherine joined the Trust in 2018 after 15 years at senior level in the private sector. She brought with her a foundation of marketing and communication knowledge balanced by a mix of creativity and business acumen.
In her role for the Trust, Catherine focuses on supporting the delivery of the Trust’s vision, values and strategic planning through effective brand communications.