The Educators’ Trust
and its Trustees
The current Board of The Educators’ Trust consists of the Chair and eleven Trustees. The Trust Board is serviced by a Honorary Officers.
The Trustees have three main responsibilities:
• Stewardship in respect of the funds and expenditure of the Trust
• Development of charitable activities
• Fundraising to increase the Trust’s income.
Mark Littler
Sally Sheppard
Associate Board Member: Professor Sir Deian Hopkin
Honorary Secretary: Mark Littler
Honorary Treasurer: Valeria Locatelli
Adviser to the Board of Trustees: Martha Burnige
Mrs Janet Reynolds
Originally from London, I trained as a teacher of English and Drama, graduating with a degree from Leeds University. After acquiring a diploma in Applied Linguistics, I spent the initial part of my career working in language training, where my specific interests were adult second language acquisition and learning theory. I became Director of Studies at a large language school and then made the leap into the corporate world of management training and consultancy.
After a period working for the UK arm of an international consultancy – one of the first companies in their field to utilize needs analysis in their course design and to apply a learning-based approach to their classroom methodology – I set up as an independent consultant working across all areas of industry and commerce. I specialised in interpersonal skills, negotiation skills, the management of change and one-to-one coaching of senior managers and worked both nationally and internationally.
I joined the Worshipful Company of Educators in 2013 and, after gaining Freedom of the City in the same year, became a liveryman of the Company. I was honoured to serve as Master in the year 2023-24.
In addition to my livery service, I have been a school governor, a Trustee of a national women’s charity and manager of my local foodbank.
After many years of moving around the country, I am now settled in Rutland and, with my husband, I enjoy music, art, travel, and our smorgasbord of a family.
I am also proud to support Middlesborough Football Club and, given my professional competencies in learning theory, I consider myself well placed to explain the off-side rule to anyone who wants to know.
Nick Bence-Trower
I had a lifetime career in the City with Schroders, the British multinational asset management company, working in financial markets, ultimately operating within its subsidiary, Cazenove Capital while managing investment portfolios for clients in the charity sector. During this period, I was a Chartered Fellow of the Institute for Securities and Investment.
I am passionate about livery companies and their ancient rights and traditions. I was admitted to the Drapers’ Company in 1982 and was elected Master in 2014. The Drapers’ Company has close links with Queen Mary University of London and they co-sponsor the Drapers’ Multi Academy Trust on Harold Hill, Havering, which includes Drapers’ Academy, a secondary school with sixth form and three feeder primary schools.
I am currently Chairman of Governors of the Sir William Boreman's Foundation, a charity originating from his will dated 1684, in which he bequeathed to the Drapers’ Company a school he had founded in Greenwich. Whilst the school no longer exists, the Foundation continues to give small educational grants to students and charities located in this borough and its neighbour, Lewisham.
I am also on the Court of the Guild of Investment Managers, established in 2015, and recently stepped down from being Upper Warden. In additional to these roles, I am a trustee of two further charities.
In the past, I have been active in raising funds for the Alzheimer's Society and the Royal British Legion by participating in sporting events including completing nine marathons and cycling to Paris three times! These days I am less active but still play golf and regularly attend both football and cricket matches.
Paul Bowers Isaacson
After graduating from Keele University, Joint Honours in Chemistry and Education, with Classical Greek as a Subsidiary, I taught in central-city schools in Manchester and London. I became interested in the creative potential of cross-curriculum courses, often with internal assessment, and developed and taught a number of innovative programmes, both in-school and as part of national projects.
Later, as a full-time curriculum developer and assessor, I contributed to major developments such as A Level Science & Society, with the Nuffield Curriculum Centre and as a senior examiner, and the Extended Project Qualification as senior examiner in the pilot and development phases with QCA/QCDA and a major awarding body. I became one of the first Chartered Educational Assessors (CEA) with a particular interest in appropriate coursework and internal assessment.
A committed Quaker, I took an early career break for several years as an educational peace project worker travelling throughout the British Isles. Subsequently joining a number of Quaker-related trustee boards including several years service with responsibility for large grant awards to International Peace and Social responsibility projects. I’ve also served as a board member and trustee of the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors. I’ve also served on the trustee groups and board of several Quaker schools and recently as governor of a school federation in North London providing both mainstream, special and alternative provision.
I’ve participated in a number of clinical research trials and am co-founder of the patient-led ‘Patient & Public Involvement’ organisation TrialsConnect. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic from March 2020, I was the patient representative on the Organisation & Management Group for all coronavirus research by Barts Health Trust and Queen Mary, University of London, meeting daily for 18 months. I am currently co-chair of NIHR Barts Biomedical Research Centre.
My wife, Lisa, works for an American university programme in London and I welcoming both students and visiting staff to the city, where I was born and bred, as ‘faculty spouse’. Additional ‘spare time’ activities include riding on Wimbledon Common and, of course, service as an active Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Educators as well as being an active liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Loriners.
Ruth Briant
Following my B.Ed. Hons Degree of the University of Cambridge, I taught for 4 years in Primary schools and then studied for the Museums Association Diploma whilst working at the V&A Museum and Orleans House Gallery, Twickenham.
Combining my teaching experience and museum qualification I have been a freelance Museum Educator using objects, replica costume and historic sites to interpret the past with Primary School students since 1996. These sessions range from the Stone Age to WWII, covering a variety of themes, at several locations in London.
I maintain professional links and CPD through membership of Group for Education in Museums, Museums Association, London Museums Network and the Chartered College of Teaching.
A Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Educators (2015), I have been on the Education and Social Committees and am a joint co-ordinator of the Arts SIG. I contributed to the setting up of an Arts Society in Victoria in 2018, and became its Chair and Co-Programme Secretary 2020-2024.
For three years from 2022 I was Executive Chair and a Trustee of the clothing charity, Queen Mother’s Clothing Guild. Since 2021 I have also been a Trustee for the Museum of the Broads, which showcases the social history and ecology of the East Anglian Broads. I enjoy visiting museums and historic sites and finding new ways to bring history alive.
Jasmine Dotiwala
I was born and educated in West London at a state school - Featherstone High School in Southall. Even though the school was in an under-sourced borough of London, its rich multi-heritage communities gave Jasmine an education in life skills that can’t be taught in formal classes.
I studied for my A Levels at Hammersmith and West London College, and degree at Roehampton University. I was lucky to secure my first job in TV with an independent TV Production company Planet24. It was reputed to be the most exciting TV company in the 1990’s as it created both The Big Breakfast and The Word.
Graduating from the TV runner role, I was plucked from obscurity to present The Word show in its final series.
I enjoyed a jet set year presenting The Word, before securing a role at MTV Europe as a MTV News presenter. I worked my way up the MTV TV career ladder for the next 13 years and was reputed for bringing in new talent from various underrepresented backgrounds.
Thereafter I spent 10 years at Media Trust, where, as the Head of Youth Media Talent, I trained young people across the UK nations and regions in multimedia skills. I developed the industry-lauded, ground-breaking Media Trust multi-media broadcast trainee programme London360 whose (over 400 to date) diverse alumni have since taken up senior positions across TV broadcasters and the creative industries in the UK.
In 2020 I joined the Netflix UK team as a Manager for new talent.
I have contributed regular reports on ground-breaking Arts and culture stories for Channel 4 News, Sky News and appear as a regular panel guest for ITN on Jeremy Vine on 5. I also hosted a weekly arts & culture show The Scene on BBC Radio London. I also write occasional columns and print press opinion pieces for platforms from The Voice (14 years), The Source Magazine, Huffington Post UK, The Metro and more.
I’m an active member of the BAFTA Voting Academy, the Royal Television Society Futures Committee, Board of Directors at Arts Emergency and ILUVLIVE, the BPI Equity and Justice Advisory Group and the MOBO and BET International Voting Academy’s.
Through work as a speaker for Speakers for Schools, in 2023, she won the Mary Lou Carrington Award for Businesswoman with Significant Commitment to Education at the Worshipful Company of Educators Trust Awards and in 2024 won the Media Award at the Asian Women of Achievement Awards.
Hilary Hodgson
I grew up in rural Shropshire and studied for a BA in Modern Languages at Oxford University, where I developed a life-long interest in the arts and a commitment to widening access to education.
A trained teacher, my career started as Head of Drama at North London comprehensive before joining Greenwich Young People’s Theatre, which brought challenging live theatre to young Londoners in the heyday of the Inner London Education Authority.
Since the early 1990’s my work has focused on improving educational opportunity, championing arts for young people at the Arts Council and running national programmes for after school activity and childcare at the National Lottery. For ten years, as a Director at Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, I developed a multi-million-pound research and grants programme supporting innovative approaches to learning. Highlights included commissioning an ambitious review of primary education led by Cambridge University.
More recently, I’ve been the Chief Executive of two education charities. At Ormiston Trust, I developed and oversaw the charity’s influential national work with vulnerable children and families. At Classics for All, I led strategy, introducing classics to over 1,000 state schools across the UK, many in areas of socio-economic disadvantage.
Currently a freelance consultant, I have advised organisations including the Royal Opera House, Garsington Opera, and the John Ellerman Foundation on strategy, grants, and evaluation. I’ve been a member of the Boards for Teach First, A New Direction and The Lyric Theatre Hammersmith and am currently Vice Chair of a Multi-Academy Trust in Essex.
Spare time — I’m is a keen musician and linguist and enjoy travelling, theatre, concerts, and good food.
Professor Sir Deian Hopkin
Born and educated in Wales, I graduated in history at Aberystwyth where I gained my PhD. A historian of the Labour and trade union movement and the press, I was an early pioneer in the use of new technologies and computers in teaching and research in history.
In a career of over 40 years, I worked as an academic and then senior manager in six universities and from 2001 to 2009 was Vice Chancellor and Chief Executive of London South Bank University following which I was interim Vice Chancellor of the University of East London; I remain an Emeritus Professor in both universities.
Many public roles have included the BBC General Advisory Council, the Learning and Skills Council and the Health Sector Skills Council. I have served as a government advisor on curriculum reform, chaired the Higher Education Progression Board (DFES), was an Apprenticeships Ambassador for HE and served on the Cabinet Office Education Honours Committee until 2017. In 2009/10 I led the inquiry for the government into the performance of the Student Loans Company, subsequently being appointed its interim Chairman. I was a member of the Corporations of Hackney and Lambeth FE Colleges, a member of the Council and Court of Essex University and for many years a Council member of City and Guilds Institute. Among many roles in the London community, I was founding Chairman of Cityside Regeneration in East London and the City Fringe, a member of the European Programmes Committee for London which managed EU funding, and Vice-Chairman of London Higher, representing 45 London universities.
In my native Wales, I was appointed as 10th President of the National Library of Wales until 2016 and was until 2020 Expert Adviser to the First Minister of Wales and Chair of Wales Remembers 1914-18. In 2019 I was awarded the First Minister of Wales’ St David Award for services to Wales and in May 2022 was elected President of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion, Wales’ oldest literary and scholarly society founded in London in 1752.
Over the years I’ve been a trustee or patron of a number of charities, including the Bishopsgate Institute, the Council for Academics at Risk (CARA) and the Campaign for Learning. In 2017 I was a founding partner of an education and public sector executive search company and am currently a Principal Adviser to a Melbourne-based HE consultancy and a member of the Higher Education Commission in Westminster which reports on policy issues in HE. I am an assessor for the Queen’s Anniversary Prizes and for the past twelve years have been a judge of the Times Higher Awards.
A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, the RSA, City and Guilds and CIBSE (Hon,) I have received honorary degrees from six universities including London, McGill and the Open University and was knighted for services to higher education and to skills in the UK in 2009.
David Skidmore
Most of my career has been in education. I am now an Emeritus Professor having held a Personal Chair in Rural Policy, spanning the subjects of geography and biology. I’m a Senior Plant Health Professional registered with the Royal Society of Biology and advise on plant health, horticulture and environmental and social issues through membership of national, project committees.
I took my BSc at the University of Manchester and completed my PhD at Bangor University. My academic career began at Girton College and the University of Cambridge. I went on to teach in both higher and further education institutions. I am concerned with all the levels of education that are represented across the Worshipful Company of Educators. It is essential to recognise and promote the enormous and undoubted benefits that education and training bring to both children and adults. I am a Primary School Governor where I’m involved in teaching, learning and assessment and the development of its international curriculum.
I am Honorary Director of the Lovell Quinta Arboretum in Cheshire which holds National Collections of oak, pine and ash. This gives me the opportunity to work with, and support volunteers and the local community, and to encounter the complexities of administering a charity.
I value the contribution that is made to science and education, and personal development, by the learned and professional societies. I am a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Society of Biology, the Chartered Management Institute and the Linnean Society of London.
Enid Weaver
From a very early age, I can remember always being involved with music in some form or other. I think I was one of the first to take advantage of the newly formed Junior Exhibitioner Scheme at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, now called Junior Guildhall. It was the Headmaster at my junior school who informed my father of this opening: and so I was taken up to London for an audition and awarded a place — apparently on my potential!
Much to the irritation of my games teacher at school, who had me down for the Essex Hockey trials, I then chose to attend Saturdays at the Guildhall for the next few years, eventually moving on to the senior Conservatoire to study singing and pianoforte for the next three years. During this time I taught singing and directed the choral class in the Junior school. I was privileged to be invited to teach for a short time in the senior school.
As with many performers in the arts, work is not easy to come by and I did: a fair amount of peripatetic teaching in schools near to where I lived; session work; and, for a short time, sang with the BBC Singers. I did the usual rounds of recitals and oratorio work with choirs in the London area and went over to Norway, where I recorded some Purcell songs for NRK. I gained a place at what was then called the Britten-Pears School for Advanced Musicians in Aldeburgh and spent a week being coached by the late Sir Peter Pears in Bach’s B minor Mass and various cantatas. The week concluded with a performance in the Snape Concert Hall.
Teaching at Bancroft’s School in Woodford Green for a number of years as Assistant Director of Music, I enjoyed the chance to work with pupils from the prep school up to the sixth form. I also had responsibility for three choirs and an orchestra. I have lost count of the number of musicals I helped produce, but can remember the nightmare of organising large groups of very enthusiastic year sevens in their first experience on stage. It was during this time that I worked towards and secured a Masters in Performance Studies.
Retiring from full time teaching at Bancroft’s gave me the opportunity to learn more about flower arranging, a subject that had always interested me. I enrolled for a two-year course at the horticultural college, Capel Manor in Enfield. The course was excellent, and we were taught every type of technique imaginable concerning flowers. We even spent part of the course on marketing — in case we wished to eventually open our own shop. I still keep my hand in with flower arranging and am in demand for weddings of course, although the lockdown meant there have been many cancellations.
Presently, I spend one day a week teaching at Kantor King Solomon School in Redbridge and am Musical Director for the New Dimension Choir in Havering. I’ve held the latter post for a number of years and the choir keeps very busy with eight concerts a year. We perform a Summer and Christmas series, each of four concerts. Needless to say, lockdown did affect us, but we kept rehearsals going courtesy of Zoom.
With Max having been the third Master of the Company, I have been involved with the Educators for many years and have always been willing to help where needed. I feel privileged to have recently been invited to work with the Trustees, especially as this is a music-themed year. Our Chairman has already put me to work with the forthcoming annual awards in view. I look forward to making a worthwhile contribution while working on the Trust Board.
Martha Burnige, Honorary Adviser
I was born and brought up in London but moved north to study for a BA (Hons) in Government and Law at the University of Manchester. I returned to London to The College of Law and joined Nabarro Nathanson (as was) as a trainee solicitor.
I qualified in 2005 specialising in charity and education law. I later worked for leading law firms Stone King and Veale Wasbrough Vizards where I advised schools, universities, student unions and grant making charities. The introduction of the Academies Act 2010 saw me becoming one of the country’s leading lawyers advising on the conversion to academy status and the formation of multi academy trusts.
I remain a practising solicitor but work for a US based school management company with responsibility for schools in the UK, Switzerland, Uganda and Dubai. I’ve been involved in the opening of two free schools in the UK, including The Gatwick School in Crawley, an all-through school. I’m also on the board of International School of Berne and of Academy Middle East, a US curriculum online school. I am company secretary of Aurora Academies Trust which has seven schools across Sussex and Surrey.
My interest in education is a credit to my mother who was a school governor and teaching assistant. My sister has also followed a career path into education and works for the University of Greenwich.
I’ve a young family and little spare time but am a fourth-generation supporter of Millwall FC where I’m a season ticket holder.
I was admitted to the Educators in 2018, becoming a Liveryman in 2021. I acted as Honorary Secretary of the Trust 2020–24 and was appointed Honorary Adviser in 2024.
The Educators’ Trust is incorporated under the Charities Act 2011 as Charitable Incorporated Organisation 1179353