Dorota is a senior associate in Trowers & Hamlins' Birmingham office which she joined in July 2011 from Shoosmiths.  Dorota specialises in all areas of housing management for registered providers and private residential landlords including homelessness, anti-social behaviour, illegal evictions, disrepair, leaseholder issues, general tenancy advice, possession, and housing–related court proceedings. She regularly represents clients in the County Court in various applications. She has advised extensively on the drafting of tenancy agreements and has reviewed registered providers' policies and procedures. Prior to working in private practice, Dorota spent 7 years working in-house at Birmingham City Council where she again specialised in housing management issues.

Dorota also speaks and trains regularly on all aspects of housing management issues. She is a Committee member of the Social Housing Law Association and joint chair of the regional branch of this organisation.

Professional qualifications, 1994- Admitted as a Solicitor to the Supreme Court of England and Wales. 1990 LLB Law – University College of Wales, Aberystwyth

Languages, Polish (fluent both written and spoken)

Gordon has worked for Marriott for almost 16 years.  Gordon spent most of this time in Finance, initially starting in a Shared Service Centre role in Luton before becoming a property DOF.  Gordon took on 5 different DOF roles becoming Cluster DOF for 8 Hotels in the UK before working as a GM for 4 years in Birmingham.  When he returned to finance again, it was in an above property role as Integration manager working on OFB rollout, then as Program Manager for Tetris and Orion deployments for Europe.

Lorne has lived in Birmingham since 1989 and has been a school governor since 2008.  Lorne was initially elected as a parent governor at Colmore Infant & Nursery School and became Chair of Governors one year later, a position I held until 2016. Following an ‘outstanding’ judgement from Ofsted in November 2011, at the suggestion of the Head, I applied for and was appointed as an NLG, a role I continued until 2021. As an NLG I have had the opportunity to work with a range of Chairs and governing bodies across the city and have enjoyed being able to share ideas and experiences.  I have also carried out a number of External Reviews of Governance, and these have often led to further opportunities to support and give advice to fellow governors on other governing bodies.  Seeing a school improve and develop is definitely the most satisfying aspect of the role.  I was involved in selecting the founding trustees for the College of Teaching and most recently have completed a position chairing an IEB.

Liz has been teaching for over 24 years, firstly in mainstream and 20 years in a Special School for pupils with Physical Disabilities and Complex Needs. Liz is originally ‘Primary’ trained but have taught across all departments and subjects; this has more recently included establishing a ‘19 to 25’ provision. Liz has also been responsible for developing the new Careers and Enterprise Strategy programme.

Liz’s previous responsibilities have included being a Director of Sports College, Head of Sixth Form, Health and Safety Manager, Manual Handling trainer and leading on work with families. Liz enjoys developing new and exciting projects/innovations in the curriculum, sourcing the funds, and then supporting staff to flourish.

Liz enjoys family holidays in Cornwall and hobbies include walking, glass fusing, and when she can, relaxing with a ‘G & T’ and a book or magazine.

Liz is passionate about helping people to develop their strengths, skills and ideas in order to provide the very best opportunities for pupils with SEND.

Andrew was born in Solihull and now live in Coventry, near the Coundon Wedge, and just a stone's throw from Kingsbury Academy. Andrew is a RIBA Chartered Architect, and has have been working in the Midlands for over a decade now. Andrew has designed and built projects across the United Kingdom, but his career highlight has been working on SEN school buildings, including the new Tiverton SEN School in Coventry.

Andrew’s area of expertise is the building and maintenance of school premises. However, he has a number of interests outside of the construction industry. As well as hiking, camping and tending to his allotment, he especially enjoys volunteering; he has carried out a number of workshops with students from primary to university age, including pupils at Calthorpe Academy, and enjoys his time as a local Cub Scout Leader.

Julia has lived and worked in Birmingham since 2004.

• 1:1 teaching for permanently excluded children and young people with a diagnosis of Autism.

• School Advisor for the Communication Autism Team

• City CAF coordinator

• Strategic lead for SEND

• National Educational lead for Tourette’s Syndrome

• Head of Service, Education Safeguarding

Across all the above roles Julia has developed staff training programmes alongside coaching and supervision for individuals and teams.

In Sept 2020 Julia left Birmingham City Council to develop “Supervision in School”. Julia is currently working with an executive coach and a media consultant to create accessible and effective solutions to safeguarding supervision in educational settings. Julia is also working with Services for Education on a consultancy basis to support training and development for new Designated Safeguarding Leads.

Julia brings to Supervision in School over 20 years’ experience in Education and Social Care. Her roles have included school advisor, national safeguarding programme developer, strategic leader in SEND and safeguarding and qualified systemic supervisor in multiple contexts. With understanding of the daily challenges of a DSL in a school setting and wider safeguarding considerations Julia brings knowledgeable and sensitive insights alongside practical tools, to generate solution focused actions for individual cases and the whole school safeguarding system.

Paul was born in Kidderminster and served his "Articles" with a small local firm of Chartered Accountants before moving onto a National firm of Chartered Accountants in Birmingham. After a number of years Paul moved back to a small firm of general practice Chartered Accountants advising on audit and taxation but this is where he had his first experience in the "World of Insolvency", helping clients who were experiencing financial difficulties.

As a result Paul then moved to a specialist Insolvency Firm where they dealt with a whole range of corporate and personal insolvency solutions. Giving clients the appropriate advice to suit their needs. An opportunity arose to assist a trading company that were experiencing financial difficulties and required a "hands on" financial approach to be able to move forward successfully.

Paul assisted them in securing a major supply contract with the NHS which guaranteed the future of the business.  After his role there was completed, various other opportunities presented themselves amongst which was advising a Plc Debt Collection company that resulted in a move to London when they relocated their operations there. Returning to Birmingham, some years later he re-established his insolvency contacts and have been, for the last 20 or so years, been involved with an insolvency firm in Sutton Coldfield.

To follow

Pat Smart is the Executive Head Teacher of Create Partnership Trust.  Pat has taught in five local authorities and an international school.  Having led Ofsted inspections and taken over the leadership or support of schools in crisis, Pat has wide experience of successful school improvement.  Pat has been designated as a National Leader of Education since 2009, with Greet named as a National support School.

Pat is currently Vice Chair of Birmingham Education Partnership and a member of the Primary Head Teacher Reference Group at the DfE.  Pat has also served as a Member and Trustee on the Boards of a number of schools in special measures.

See above profile

Alex was born in London and now Lives in Kings Heath Birmingham.

Alex started his career as a Physics teacher at a school in Birmingham on the Teach First programme. Subsequently, he retrained as an accountant at PwC in the audit department. Now Alex is a Senior Financial Analyst at Newlands Property Developments.

Expertise: Financial accounting & reporting

Interests: Triathlon, Music

Richard commenced his career in a large urban middle school, and after four years progressed to the position of Deputy Head at a primary school in West Sussex. After four further years, at the age of 30, he was appointed as Head Teacher of a small primary school in Kent.

In September 2001, Richard moved to become Head Teacher of a larger First School in Dorset. In 2005, following a review of schooling in the locality, Dorset County Council decided to scrap the three-tier education system with Richard instrumental in a complete re-organisation of schooling in the area; this involved redeploying staff, dealing with disaffected parents, managing a significant increase in pupil numbers and overseeing several building projects. In 2007 the new Primary School that Richard was leading underwent an OFSTED inspection, with the school being judged as Outstanding in all areas.

Following the successful OFSTED of 2007, Dorset LA seconded Richard for one term to a very large and extremely challenging Primary School in crisis on the South Coast; this secondment eventually lasted for one year during which time Richard successfully brought swift improvements to teaching and learning, pupil well-being and staff morale.

In April 2009, Richard decided to make the move to Special Education and took up the post of Head Teacher at an all-age generic Special School in Wiltshire. Richard quickly realised that there were significant problems in this school and in 2010 it was placed in Special Measures by OFSTED. Following rapid improvement, the school was removed from Special Measures in 2011 and in 2013 a subsequent OFSTED report rated the school as ‘Good’.

Following the successful inspection of 2013, Richard initiated a dialogue with two primary schools with whom the school shared a site, and in January 2015 he became CEO of Somerset Road Education Trust (SRET, a small MAT of one Special School and two Primary Schools).

In 2016, Richard became Principal of Calthorpe Teaching Academy in Birmingham, and subsequently Executive Head Teacher and founding CEO of Thrive Education Partnership, a Multi Academy Trust that has specialist schools in Birmingham, Coventry and Warwickshire

In 2015 Richard was designated as a National Leader of Education and since 2018 Calthorpe has been named as a National Support School.

Lucy has been working within the HR profession for nearly 20 years as a fully chartered member of the CIPD and is currently working as a People Partner for the General Dental Council in Birmingham. Over the years Lucy has undertaken roles within the public and private sectors via employers ranging from the NHS to Accenture and in addition to generalist HR have specialised in graduate recruitment for several organisations.

The best thing about HR for Lucy is the variety, you could be interviewing for a Head of Comms at 9 am then advising a manager on how to support an employee diagnosed with cancer at 10 am, followed by giving an employment law update at 11 am. There’s no greater satisfaction than seeing people thrive at work.

Lucy ended an eight-year term as governor of Kidderminster College last year and really enjoyed her time there where she was the EDI lead governor. During that period the college went from being a stand-alone to merging with Newcastle Colleges and a complete change of governance structure, so there was plenty of learning and new challenges for all involved which was a fantastic experience.

Lucy has a passion for developing young people and supporting them into employment in whatever they want to do.  Lucy has worked with EY Foundation in the past on their Smart Futures scheme and have mentored young people from disadvantaged backgrounds who were undertaking A-Levels and hoping to go onto university. Lucy has also most recently developed a resourcing strategy for the GDC which includes the aim to start to attract and develop young people within the organisation via apprenticeships and other non-traditional routes.

Lucy is originally from Shropshire and still lives in the county with her husband Pete and dog Boris, a miniature schnauzer with plenty of character and a rather unkempt look, Lucy will leave you to make the link there!

Lucy lives in Ironbridge which is a beautiful town if a little wet in the Winter due to the good old River Severn.

Lucy loves to travel or did pre-COVID and spend a lot of time in Spain, mainly due to the fact her parents live there.  Lucy is also food obsessed and Boris and her like nothing more than a long walk followed by some good food with her husband.

To follow