Governance

Slide Background

Futura Learning Partnership is governed by a Board of Trustees. They are supported by a Local Governance Committee in each individual school to ensure that we provide high quality education for all and spend public money appropriately.

Our Trustees are appointed by the trust’s members and are accountable to the Department for Education and external government agencies.

The Board, with the support of its committees, sets the trust’s strategic direction. Most operational activity is delegated to the Executive Leadership Team.

CONTACT

Email: trusteesclerk@futuralearning.co.uk

OUR MEMBERS

Geoff Blakeman

Geoffrey Blakeman: CLT Member Geoff has considerable experience as a Governor since being appointed in 1985 at Tickenham School and since 1992 at Clevedon School, serving as Chair of Governors in both schools, going on to be the founding Chair of Clevedon Learning Trust. Geoff is a retired Magistrate, serving for 13 years on the Somerset Bench and for 10 years was a Churchwarden at Tickenham Church. He served as a Member of Clevedon Learning Trust from 2015, before becoming a member of Futura Learning Partnership in 2023.

Diocese of Bath and Wells

Diocese of Bath and Wells has been a member since 1st September 2015.

Peter Rilett

Peter Rilett: Director, GWE Business West Ltd Peter Rilett was the senior partner of KPMG’s Bristol office. A qualified chartered accountant, he has significant experience in the property, construction, printing and leisure sectors. Since retiring, Peter has held a number of board and chair positions in housing, transport, health, business and education, including North Bristol NHS Trust, City of Bristol College, St Monica’s Trust and Bristol Grammar School. He is a member of the Society of Merchant Venturers and was its master in 2012.

John Thompson: Chair of the Board of Trustees; Member of the Finance and Estates Committee; LGC Chair Mentor

John Thompson, Chair of the Futura Learning Partnership's Trust Board John is the CEO of YTL Construction (UK) Limited, which is a large fast-growing company delivering innovative solutions in the construction, energy, water, infrastructure and environmental sectors in the South West. He has previously held senior leadership positions, including Chief Operating Officer at Wessex Water. He also serves as a Pension Board Trustee for the Wessex Water Pension Scheme.

John’s wide-ranging career through oil, gas, aviation, water and place making has given him a breadth of experience with a proven track record of creating a positive inclusive team culture, supporting people development, proving strong community outcomes and commercial growth. An active community volunteer and mentor. John sits on the Finance and Estates Committee.

John became a Member on 1 February 2026.

OUR BOARD

Hilary Neal: Vice-Chair of the Trust Board; Governance Trustee; Climate Trustee; Trustee Mentor; Member of the People Committee; Chairs’ Group

Hilary Neal - Vice-Chair of the Trust Board Retired as a Senior Civil Servant in 2011, Hilary had a long career in advice and administration for a wide variety of Government policy areas, particularly the environment, local government and biodiversity conservation. As Deputy Director at the Government Office for the South West, she was responsible for managing the strategic relationship between central Government and local partners, particularly in the West of England area. Since retiring she has devoted herself to supporting charitable organisations at a strategic level – including Curzon Cinema and Arts in Clevedon and Quartet Community Foundation. She is the Independent Chair of South Gloucestershire’s Compact Group that encourages the supportive partnership relationships between the voluntary and statutory sectors in that area. She was Chair of Governors at Mary Elton Primary School, joined the Board of Clevedon Learning Trust in 2017 and, as Vice-Chair, helped steer discussions towards the merger to form the new Futura Learning Partnership. Hilary is also vice-chair of the Trust Board.

Gary Schlick: Chief Executive Officer

With 15 years’ headship in two secondary schools and executive leadership in other schools and specialist settings, Gary has significant experience in school leadership and in raising achievement.

Gary has been involved in training headteachers internationally including in Africa and the Middle East. Much of his current work is involved in school improvement.

Jaideep Barot: Education and Standards

Jaideep Barot has been Head of Bristol Grammar School since 2018, having previously held senior leadership positions at Marlborough College, The Godolphin & Latymer School and Westminster School, following an earlier career with Goldman Sachs. He holds degrees from St John’s College, Cambridge and Durham University, is a Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching, and has previous served as Chair of HMC – The Heads’ Conference.

A passionate advocate for widening access to educational opportunity, Jaideep was part of the group that established the Bristol Education Partnership, a collaborative initiative bringing together schools, universities and the city council to improve outcomes for young people across Bristol.

In addition to his school leadership role, Jaideep is an inspector for the Independent Schools Inspectorate and serves as a governor for a number of leading schools in the UK and internationally. He brings extensive experience of educational leadership, governance, strategy and school improvement to the Board. Jaideep joins the Education and Standards committee.

Kaye Case: Education and Standards; LGC Chair Mentor; SEND Trustee

Kaye Case Kaye sits on the trust’s Education and Standards Committee, having trained as an Early Years and Primary Specialist. She has spent all her working life teaching in Primary schools, working with every age range and teaching every subject. The last thirteen years of her full time teaching career was spent as Head Teacher of two Primary Schools. During her second Headship, she trained as an Ofsted Inspector and inspected schools in many different parts of the country. She also worked as an associate Advisor for North Somerset. This involved close mentoring of newly appointed Head Teachers. On leaving full time Headship Kaye became Joint Head Teacher of North Somerset’s Virtual School. This involved holding responsibility for the education of all Children in Care across the County as well as those fostered outside the authority. For the last six years Kaye has been employed by the Adoption Team in North Somerset to support the education of many traumatised adopted children and their parents. During this time she also served as a Governor of Bristol Grammar School.

Jonathan Kidd: Audit and Risk committee

Jonathan is a senior executive leader with more than 25 years’ experience in technology, cyber security, risk management and governance. He is currently Global Chief Information Security Officer at Computershare Limited, where he advises the Board and executive leadership on cyber security, operational resilience and risk across an international organisation operating in more than 20 countries.

Jonathan has previously held Chief Information Security Officer roles at Hargreaves Lansdown and the Met Office, as well as serving as Head of Internal Audit in the public sector. His career has spanned financial services, government and consultancy, giving him extensive experience of governance, assurance, strategic risk oversight and organisational resilience.

He brings strong expertise in risk management, audit, cyber security and regulatory compliance, together with significant experience supporting Boards to make informed strategic decisions.

Marlene Morley CBE: Chair of Audit and Risk; Executive Remuneration; Chairs’ Group; Willowdown Interim Board; Complaints Panel Member

Marlene Morley CBE Marlene is Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee. She brings to the role her wide experience at the MoD, where she led major projects specialising in people and organisational change. She was awarded the CBE in 2010. Marlene is on the skills group of the West of England Local Enterprise Partnership and is leading on the Employability Chartermark, aimed at improving the work readiness of young people leaving school.

Michael Perry: Chair of the Finance and Estates Committee; Chair of Commercial Services; Trustee Mentor

Michael Perry: Finance and Estates Michael has worked for a number of multinational professional services and UK and US stock exchange listed organisations in finance functional leadership roles. He has worked with Board and Executive management at all levels of these organisations, all of which were undergoing significant change. Through these roles he has provided challenge and support and has also led key initiatives and projects. He left full-time employment in September 2020 to set up his own consulting business but also to find time to pursue voluntary roles and, in addition to his role within Futura Learning Partnership, he is the trustee Treasurer for a South West based cancer charity – It’s in the Bag and the Royal West of England Academy. Michael chairs the trust’s Finance and Estates Committee.

John Purcell: Member of the Audit and Risk Committee; Safeguarding Trustee; Complaints Panel Member

John Purcell John enjoyed a 33 year career in sales/customer management across different sectors, culminating in Sales Director and Account Director roles. He is used to working at board level, building working relationships throughout all layers of organisations. Skills gained include people management, risk management, budget/finance management and strategic planning. John’s experiences as a Foster Carer and as Chair of Governors at an Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties (EBD) School (11-16), awoke an interest in children less fortunate or disadvantaged; looking to ensure they get all the opportunities they require to be the best they can be. John brings over 20 years’ experience in Governance Roles.

Zac Rowe: Member of the Audit and Risk Committee; Complaints Panel Member

Zac is a practising solicitor with broad experience providing corporate and commercial legal advice at board level. Having a particular interest in risk management, Zac supports the Audit and Risk Committee.

In addition to his role with the trust, he serves as a trustee for an environmental charity and works as a legal advisor for a global manufacturing company.

Claire Savory: Member of the Education and Standards Committee

Claire Savory

Claire is the CEO at the GLA, a multi-academy trust of nine primary schools. Prior to this role she was the Director of Academies and an Executive Head teacher. She was the Headteacher at Rowanfield Junior School for many years, achieving ‘outstanding’ in three consecutive inspections. Claire was a National Leader of Education for 12 years providing system leadership in failing schools. She provides executive coaching for the NPQEL and is an experienced facilitator for the NPQH.

Harriet Unger: Member of the People Committee

Harriet is a lawyer by background and was a partner in the Hong Kong offices of two law firms before moving into the financial services sector where she gained experience in compliance, risk management and governance. Harriet was HSBC’s Asia Pacific chief control officer for Global Banking and Markets before becoming company secretary for a pan-Asian insurance company. Harriet is now keen to volunteer and leverage her experience in a different way. She is a member of People Committee.

Natalie Wilcox: Member of Education and Standards Committee; Complaints Panel Member; Careers Trustee

Natalie Wilcox, Trustee at Futura Learning Partnership Natalie has worked in schools for 23 years as a French and German teacher, school leader and most recently Headteacher. Her passion lies in reducing barriers to education for children from disadvantaged backgrounds and ensuring that they are given the opportunities that they need to be successful.

She is also one of the south west regional leaders for WomenEd, a grass roots organisation supporting female teachers into leadership. Through this organisation she has delivered at national conferences and regional workshops, as well as working one to one coaching female leaders.

Natalie has been a governor for around 20 years in a number of schools, most recently as chair of a primary school. She took up her post as Director of Secondary Education for Lighthouse Schools Partnership in September 2023.

Sian Yates: Chair of the People Committee; Chairs’ Group; Executive Remuneration

Sian Yates Sian Chairs the People Committee, and has worked in HR roles in financial services, insurance, and fin-tech organisations for more than two decades. She is currently global Head of People Services and Delivery at Computershare in Bristol. Sian has over 10 years’ experience as a school governor for Victoria Park Primary School and is also a trustee for the Cathedral Schools Trust.