Our schools are thoroughly supported by our highly skilled central team. The team provides extensive support in Finance, HR, Estates Management, Governance and IT. The team operates to make the daily working lives of our school leaders easier and provide that expert knowledge in specific operational areas. This allows our leaders to focus on the needs of the whole child and provide the best education for the pupils in our care.
Meet The Central Team
Nick Blackburn
CEO
Rebecca Pavey
Deputy CEO & Executive Headteacher
Mark Dent
School Improvement Lead & Executive Headteacher
Kath Hull
CFO
Hannah Peacock
HR Manager
Beth Wright
Trust Administrator and PA to CEO
Finance Team
We have a team of highly qualified accountants who provide expert financial information to our schools and trust, working in partnership to ensure all resources are deployed effectively and efficiently to have the greatest impact for all our pupils.
HR Team
Ensuring our staff are valued, rewarded and developed as our most valuable resource within our trust and key to the quality of education we deliver.
Estates & H&S
We ensure all our schools are safe, high quality environments for our pupils to learn in.
Governance
Professional governance support ensuring skills and knowledge is up to date, minutes are accurately recorded and procedures adhered to.
Marketing & Communication
Helping you to promote the wonderful work in our schools and engage with all parents and communities.
Office Administration
Training and support with all school administration, working together to ensure effective, efficient administration covering all compliance and reporting requirements.
Nick Blackburn
CEO
Nick Blackburn, CEO, brought about Lingfield Education Trust after a period of successful headship and supporting other schools across Darlington.
Nick has led the growth of the Trust to 9 schools, with our most recent school being Handale, and increasingly supports other schools and Multi-Academy Trusts across England.
Nick is also an experienced leadership coach, programme designer and quality assurer for school leadership programmes across the country.
Nick is a strong CEO – knowing and navigating the academy landscape well since the launch of the academies programme.
Rebecca Pavey
Deputy CEO & Executive Headteacher
Rebecca Pavey is Lingfield Education Trust’s Deputy CEO, and executive headteacher of the successful Mount Pleasant Primary School, in Darlington.
Rebecca is an experienced executive headteacher, who has secured outstanding leadership and management judgements and provided support to schools, other than her own, in order to improve them rapidly. Across her career, Rebecca has worked in North Yorkshire, Durham and Darlington.
Rebecca and Mark work closely together as the School Improvement Team for the Trust, and increasingly with other schools across the region.
Mark Dent
School Improvement Lead & Executive Headteacher
Mark Dent is an experienced school leader and headteacher, having been a successful headteacher in Durham prior to taking up post with Lingfield Education Trust.
Because of Mark’s track record of supporting other schools across the region, he was appointed as our Trust’s ‘School Improvement Lead’, which sees him work with all of our family of schools to support their continual improvement and successful OFSTED inspections.
Mark was appointed as the executive headteacher for our new school in January 2018 – preparing for opening in September 2019.
Kath Hull
CFO
Kath Hull, CFO for Lingfield Trust, is a qualified CIMA accountant with over 20 years accounting experience, the last 15 of which have been within the Education Sector.
Kath has significant experience of supporting schools with their financial management and budgeting, and has supported the CEO in ensuring the Trust has strong financial management, at all levels of the organisation. Her vision is to always align the financial planning to the vision and priorities of the school and trust, to ensure finances are an enabler, and not a block to achieving the key objectives for our pupils.
During her career Kath has also gained experience and qualifications in HR, School Business Management and H&S.
Hannah Peacock
HR Manager
Hannah is the HR Manager for Lingfield and is CIPD qualified. She has significant HR experience from the care sector before joining the trust in 2019. Hannah is highly skilled in supporting all employees, as well as our school leaders to ensure Lingfield trust recruits and retains the best staff who are dedicated to making a difference to our children’s lives.
Beth Wright
Trust Administrator and PA to CEO
Beth is the Trust Adminstrator and PA to the CEO. She recently joined the trust following the successful completion of her apprenticeship, and has experience of the education sector.
She provides key administration support to the central team across finance, HR, governance and marketing, and is your first point of contact if you would like to get in touch to find out more about Lingfield Trust.