Trustees and Members

We have Members of the Trust. They are collectively responsibly for ensuring the Trust is meeting its charitable objectives. The Members meet 3 times per year to consider the accounts and any governance arrangements.

Our Trust Board is constituted of 12 Trustees who collectively are responsible for the strategic direction of the Trust. The Board is the employer and accountable body to ensure regulatory and statutory compliance for the whole Trust.  The personal biographies of our Trustees and Members are included in the gallery below. 

The Board delegates some of its duties to committees of Trustees: Education Committee,  Resources Committee and Risk & Audit Committee. Trustees delegate further responsibilities to school governors (Local Governing Committees) under our Scheme of Delegation. Governors are responsible for the strategic oversight of the management and performance of their school. You can find out more about the various committees and the Trust's Scheme of Delegation here. You will find details of school governors on the individual school websites.

Trustees - click on the image to find out more

• Pam Cosh
  Chair of Trustees
  Pam Cosh

  Pam brings a wealth of Special Educational needs and disability experience having work with learners with profound speech and language difficulties for 25 years before retiring and moving back to the South West.

  As a teacher, senior leader and Headteacher in a non-maintained special primary school, she has worked with highly motivated, multi-disciplinary teams on a daily basis and supported parents to obtain the possible outcomes for their children. Pam is a Foundation Trustee, drawing on her Christian faith to drive her decision-making. She is currently Vice Chair of the Board and also a member of the Bath and Wells Diocesan Board of Education

  Pam was appointed by the Diocese of Bath and Wells to the Board as a Foundation Trustee, and her current term of office is 01.07.2021 - 30.06.2025

• Beverley Hobbs
  Vice Chair of Trustees
  Beverley Hobbs

  Retired in 2023 from her role as CEO of a small multi-academy trust, Beverley has served as headteacher in three mainstream secondary schools, most recently an outstanding Church of England 11-18 academy in Berkshire. In her role as CEO, she acted as lead education professional for day-to-day operations within the trust and had responsibility for working alongside the chair of trustees to create, evolve and deliver the trust’s strategic development plan. In addition, she line managed the head of finance and operations and the headteachers of the member schools, enabling her to maintain a detailed understanding of the challenges and opportunities experienced within both the primary and secondary phase.

  Since retiring from the role of headteacher in 2019, Beverley has been appointed as director in another multi-academy trust based in Oxfordshire in which she is chair of the education committee. That same year she also began sitting as a magistrate, enabling her to put to use some of the key skills developed as a result of a lengthy career in school leadership.

  Membership of her local church community continues to play a key part in Beverley’s personal life. She continues to serve as secretary to the PCC, a role which, like the magistracy, calls for an understanding of human nature - very familiar territory for anyone with experience of working in schools and leadership.

  Beverley was appointed by the Diocese of Bath and Wells to the Board as a Foundation Trustee, and her current term of office is 12.09.2023- 11.09.2027

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• Tamara Dexter
  Vice Chair of Trustees
  Tamara Dexter

  Tamara has worked in education for over 20 years in four different Trusts and five local authorities. She has substantial experience of delivering strategic leadership that has resulted in demonstrable school and Trust success including achieving outstanding OFSTED inspections in multiple schools.

  In addition to her current role as an Executive Headteacher and Trust Inclusion, Safeguarding and EYFS leader, she is a 'Local Leader of Education and Headteacher Advocate for the Boolean Maths Hub, a 'DFE Area Lead' for the EYFS Covid Recovery Programme and a Visiting Fellow for Five Counties.

  Tamara is a strong advocate for continuous school improvement and as a 'School Improvement Lead' has joined multiple executive teams to complete internal school review visits for Early Years, Primary, Secondary and SEND provisions, supporting with the identification of current school strengths alongside making recommendations for improvements. She has completed the National Award for SEND Coordination, NPQSL, NPQH and NPQEL to support professional development.

  Tamara is committed to school governance and sits on an Education Standard Committee for a large Trust in the Southwest. She was appointed as a Trustee to Bath and Wells in March 2024.

• Anu Anand
  Trustee
  Anu Anand

  Anu is a journalist and radio presenter with 23 years experience in international news, mostly for the BBC World Service. She has travelled and reported widely, from places as far afield as India, Burma, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Mongolia, the Middle East, Egypt, Tanzania, the US, Uruguay and Northern Ireland. She is currently producing her own podcast as well as a series of children’s bilingual picture books in Indian languages. She is passionate about nurturing inclusive communities partly by sharing high quality information. She has adopted Bath as her home but has previously lived in the US, India and London and has two teenage children.

  Anu was appointed by the Diocese of Bath and Wells to the Board as a Foundation Trustee, and her current term of office is 12.09.2023- 11.09.2027

• Paul Whiting
  Trustee
  Paul Whiting

  Paul has over 20 years’ experience within industry and has specialised in the key area of regulatory compliance holding Money Laundering Reporting Officer (MLRO) and Head of Compliance roles. He has experience of working with regulators and building strong working relationships with internal and external stakeholders. Prior to the compliance roles he held Senior Operational Management positions where he was responsible for building diverse and successful teams. Paul lives in Somerset with his wife and two young children.

• Claire Hudson
  Foundation Trustee
  Claire Hudson

  Claire has significant education governance experience at trust level as a Trustee and Member, as well as at primary, secondary and specialist school phases. She was a National Leader of Governance from 2016-2021 and during this time she specialised in working with inadequate schools, as well as undertaking governance reviews. Claire is the Assistant Director of Education (Partnerships for School Flourishing) at the Diocese of Bath & Wells; her responsibilities include governance, training and the Diocesan school estate. She is a trained ACAS investigator and has undertaken a number of independent HR investigations for LAs and MATs. Claire is passionate about ensuring the equality of opportunity for all children.

• Charlotte Taylor
  Methodist Foundation Trustee
  Charlotte Taylor

  Before becoming a teacher, Charlotte explored a variety of professions including; working in a residential special school, a semi-secure unit for 5-19-year olds, volunteering in India and nannying in New York.

  For the past 25 years Charlotte has been involved in church school education and embraced all of the challenges this has brought. Much of that time Charlotte dedicated to one community, building trust and knowledge over two generations. As the Headteacher and later Executive Headteacher at Holly Hill Church School, she inspired a culture of flourishing and a deep-rooted belief in all children being the best that they can be. At the heart of a community with high deprivation, the school ranked in the top 10% for reading, writing and Maths progress scores nationally, beginning the journey of realising social capital for those most disadvantaged.

  Sharing knowledge and working collaboratively with colleagues has always been important and so becoming a Birmingham Leader of Education, supporting with reading and early phonics and leadership development was a joy.

  In 2019, Charlotte became Regional leader of Education for Methodist schools for the West Midlands, working as part of the central team. After a year as the Joint Head of Service, Charlotte is now interim head of service overseeing standards and ethos of 66 Methodist and joint Anglican/ Methodist schools across England.

  Charlotte sits on a number of boards including Epworth Education Trust, Lincoln Anglican Academy Trust, Curriculum and RE committee for the Diocese of Birmingham, the DfE Faith Schools Group, Section 48 Inspectorate group. She is a serving SIAMS inspector.

  Charlotte is passionate about high quality, inclusive education and inspires others to lead through the Christian values of love, kindness and integrity. One of her passions is in relationship building within communities, employing the Methodist principle – go not where you are needed but where you are needed most.

• Andrew Warren
  Trustee
  Andrew Warren

  Andrew retired from his role as the Regional Director for the West Midlands in the Department for Education in January 2025. This senior civil service role included oversight and responsibility for just under 2,400 schools across fourteen local authorities and several dioceses. His brief also included Children’s Social Care, SEND and Priority Education Investment Areas.

  He was previously the Chair of the Teaching Schools Council, the organisation which helped to shape national policy, working with policy makers and teaching schools across the country to ensure every child, in every part of the country, had access to a great school. He is a Founding Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching and has worked closely with many headteachers and senior leaders as a coach and professional mentor.

  Before that he was a primary headteacher for seventeen years in three very different schools, which included two secondments to schools in trouble. Andrew was also seconded for a year to work for Stoke-On-Trent City Council as an Assistant Director in the Children and Young People’s Directorate, leading a team of over 450 staff.

  His Christian faith is an important part of who he is and what he does. He is a lay reader in the Church of England and on the leadership team of his local parish church.

  In his spare time, Andrew loves climbing mountains (he has completed all the Wainwrights in the Lake District and been to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro) and long distance walking (including a 1000 mile pilgrimage across France and Spain on the Camino de Santiago). He plays the piano in a music band he leads and is starting to hone his jazz piano skills. He is a qualified ski instructor and can’t remember the last time he was bored!

Members  

• Tracey Khodabandehloo
  Tracey is also Chair of the Diocesan Board of Education
  Tracey Khodabandehloo

• Ed Gregory
  Ed is also Director of Education at the Bath and Wells Diocese.
  Ed Gregory

• Bishop Ruth Worsley
  Ruth is the Bishop of Taunton and currently acting Bishop of Coventry
  Bishop Ruth Worsley

• John Swainston
  John Swainston

  John graduated from Durham University in 1970, also completing his teacher training year in Durham. He began teaching Maths and Science in the secondary sector before becoming Head of Year 7 in one of Leicestershire's pioneering Junior High Schools (11-14). From there John moved into the 9-13 Middle Schools in the North-east, as Deputy Head of one, then successively Head of three others.

  John then moved into system leadership, firstly as an LA Adviser, then Director of an inner-city Education Action Zone, DfE Senior Adviser (under Professor David Hopkins) and Assistant Director of Children's Services in a very large LA (342 schools). Lastly, he moved to the South-West in 2012 as Director of Education for the Diocese of Bristol and CEO of their growing Diocesan MAT. He retired in 2019 after a career in Education spanning 47 years. In his retirement, John is committed to BWMAT and has worked closely with a number of our Local Governing Committees and has served as Chair of our Education Committee.

  John was appointed by the Diocese of Bath and Wells to the Board as a Foundation Trustee in 2021 and became a Member in September 2024.

• Steve Colledge
  Steve Colledge

  Steve spent most of his career in secondary schools. He has always been committed to ensuring student-centred schools and that staff are committed to delivering a great experience for their students. He believes that education is about developing an informed, pleasant and engaging character who has achieved their best and acquired a love of lifelong learning and cares for others.

  He held senior leadership positions in secondary schools for 28 years, working in a range of rural and urban locations in Essex, Gloucestershire, South Gloucestershire and Swindon. These posts included low and high performing settings and two headships. His two headships required that he brought about substantial change and built sustainable new cultures. As a result of this work Steve became a National Leader of Education.

  In 2011 his school became an early ‘converter academy’ and soon joined with the first local primary multi-academy trust to create a cross-phase organisation including a teaching school. Steve became Secondary Director of the expanded multi-academy trust. This gave him considerable opportunity to work with primary schools as well as secondary schools in developing leadership and driving effective school improvement.

  Steve has served on Governing Bodies and Interim Boards in secondary, primary and special schools and continued as an area Chair of Secondary Headteachers until July 2019. He has been Chair of Schools Forum in two local authorities and has sat on several local authority working groups. Steve was also a DFE Education Adviser and an OFSTED Inspector.

  Following retirement Steve became an education consultant and his work has focused on quality assurance, peer to peer support and school improvement in both secondary and primary schools.

  Steve is a Methodist member of the Cirencester Ashcroft Methodist/URC Church where he has an active role within the Church Community.

  Steve was appointed by the Diocese of Bath and Wells to the Board as a Foundation Trustee in 2022 and became a Member in September 2024.

• Simon Hill
  Standing in for Bishop Ruth currently
  Simon Hill