Central Support Services

Our Central Support Services team provides effective and efficient support to all of our schools. 

Our centralised work here relates to the non-teaching and learning aspects of running a school including IT, Finance, HR, Governance, Communications and Estates, alleviating the burden of administrative responsibility for schools. This allows Headteachers to focus on excellent teaching and learning.

Our central team supports all aspects of our trust.

• Our IT support service provides technical expertise and support, alongside advice for the next technological advances which could be embedded in our schools.
• Our Finance team provides financial acumen, strategic advice, clear processes and technical financial knowledge so that complex financial scenarios can be fully understood and planned for.
• Our HR function delivers specialist support to each school for recruitment, compliance and employee relations to ensure all our staff are well managed and looked after.
• Our Governance Lead underpins our overarching administrative practices and enforces relevant regulatory guidance, ensuring that throughout our trust we are aligned with data protection legislation and expectations.
• Our Communications service coordinates trust-wide updates that are both necessary and exciting, internally and externally. This includes traditional, social and digital communication mediums across our family of schools.
• Our Estates team ensures our buildings are safe and secure environments for teaching and learning.

This approach ensures that multidisciplinary teams consistently work with and support our schools, ensuring services are sustainable for our growing trust.

Value for Money

Centralising our non-teaching and learning services has the benefit of encouraging reduced costs through better use of resources, achieving better value for money than an individual school would be able to.

Central Support Services Team

Janet Garraway - Chief Operating Officer

Gavin Bailey - Head of Finance

Sirena Ashman - Head of HR

Alec Prenter - Head of IT

James Sanderson - Head of Estates

Our Central Support Services Team is based at Ashdown House, Johnson Road, Sittingbourne.