Working Smarter Together Seminar

Tanya is the trust’s Head of Finance with over 6 years of experience at Astrea. Tanya is passionate about ensuring the trust’s resources are managed effectively so that our schools can focus on delivering the best education for every pupil. Working closely with school leaders and colleagues across the Trust, Tanya provides strategic financial leadership, oversees budgeting and compliance and supports informed decision making. Tanya has extensive experience in developing budgets using the CLFP approach, aligning financial resources with curriculum delivery to maximise value and support pupil outcomes. Tanya enjoys building strong relationships, improving financial processes and helping to create a sustainable future that enables our schools and communities to thrive. 

As a Finance Team Leader, Kayleigh has been part of the Astrea team for over four years. Leading a team of five Finance Officers, we support 27 schools by managing all ledger-related activities and providing financial guidance to ensure smooth day-to-day operations. Building strong working relationships with school leaders and colleagues is a key part of Kayleigh’s role and something she values greatly, ensuring that financial processes are efficient, effective, and aligned with the needs of each school. Above all, pupils’ education is at the heart of everything Kayleigh does, and she is committed to supporting positive outcomes through effective financial management. 

Andrew has been in Education IT and safeguarding for over 15 years. He was Head of Technology & Service Delivery for Yorkshire & Humber Grid for Learning (YHGfL), designing and supplying ISP services to the majority of schools in the Yorkshire and Humber region including safeguarding and sat on the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) Funding Council & board for many years during this time. Later he joined Smoothwall, a market leader in internet filtering and monitoring,  running their Service Support function as well as Customer Experience. More latterly, Andrew was Director of IT for Delta Academies Trust through a period of rapid expansion before taking up the role as Director of IT at Astrea Academy Trust. 

Weilan Lam is Astrea Procurement Manager, working closely alongside Anne Giliker, Procurement Consultant.  

Weilan leads all aspects of procurement across the trust, overseeing external tendering activity, managing supplier contracts, and delivering end-to-end tender processes. With a strong focus on ensuring compliance, value for money, and effective supplier relationships, she plays a key role in supporting operational delivery. 

In addition to her work within Astrea, Weilan also provides procurement support to other multi-academy trusts (MATs), sharing expertise and helping to strengthen procurement practices across the sector. 

Dave Scott-Hepburn is Astrea’s Head of Estates and Health & Safety, leading the trust’s approach to safe, compliant and effective school environments. His role covers estates strategy, capital planning, statutory compliance, risk management, emergency planning and the practical support provided to academies across the Trust. 

With extensive experience in health and safety leadership, Dave focuses on making complex requirements clear, manageable and relevant. His approach is rooted in collaboration, proportionate risk management and ensuring that estates and health and safety enable education rather than become barriers to it. 

Graham is responsible for leading and supporting the catering service across Astrea Academy Trust, ensuring the delivery of high-quality, nutritious, and compliant school meals. His role includes overseeing food safety, operational standards, menu development, allergen management, staff training, and service improvement across our schools. He works closely with school leaders and catering teams to enhance the dining experience, increase meal uptake, and delivering a consistent, high-quality catering service that supports pupils’ health, wellbeing, and learning. 

Rosie Hart is an experienced safeguarding professional with over 13 years’ expertise spanning family support services and safeguarding in education. As Head of Safeguarding, Rosie leads the central safeguarding function, overseeing the development and implementation of safeguarding policy, procedure and responsive guidance.   

Rosie provides strategic leadership to the Astrea Academy Trust safeguarding network, supporting Principals and Designated Safeguarding Leads across the trust with compliance, case advice, professional challenge, and specialist safeguarding training. Rosie is committed to the continued development of safeguarding culture and ensuring that leaders are equipped with the knowledge and confidence to protect and promote the welfare of children and young people. 

An active member of the National Association of Academy Safeguarding Advisors, Rosie contributes to sector-wide development and improvement. She has presented at national conferences, including the Confederation of School Trusts (CST) Safeguarding Conference, speaking on topics such as effective supervision for safeguarding leaders and developing impactful continuing professional development (CPD) pathways. 

Matt Carnaby is the Director of Curriculum and Assessment at Astrea Academy Trust. He has been a system leader for almost a decade in two different MATs. He completed his degree and teacher training at the University of East Anglia. He has previously led English Initial Teacher Training programmes and been responsible for trust-wide curriculum leadership in English. Alongside advising the Department for Education and Ofqual, he co-led Oak National Academy’s pandemic response in English, co-authored the Reading Framework Two and was appointed as the lead drafter for the new National Curriculum for English. His interests are in teacher development, curriculum & assessment development and the teaching of reading and writing.

Jonny Wathan’s journey from PE teacher to CIO reflects his passion for education and technology. As CIO, he helps multi-academy trusts modernise education through effective data strategy, digital infrastructure, and governance. He is also CEO of TransforMATive, an education technology consultancy, and is committed to using technology to improve communication, collaboration, and decision-making. His leadership has been recognised with awards including the Tes Award for Outstanding Leadership in Education.

Anne is co-founder and is a seasoned procurement professional with recent experience as a secondary school teacher. This provides clear insight into the procurement needs of schools. Anne has also extensive experience in financial services at Barclays, Virgin Money and Bradford & Bingley plus Retail with Co-operative Group. She specialises in Supplier management, negotiation and delivering cost reduction whilst guiding on future strategic thinking 

The half-day session may change based on discussions, however, we will aim to cover the following:

• Reducing unnecessary duplication
• Using existing skills more effectively
• Exploring practical collaboration
• Learning from existing best practice

The overall aim of this seminar is to explore the forming of a cross-school and trust working group to develop shared service opportunities locally.

This event is mainly aimed towards (but not limited to) Headteachers, CEOs, CFOs, School Business Leaders, and Operational leads across maintained schools and academy trusts.

This event is open to all maintained schools and trusts. You do not need to be associated with the trust already.