Professional Mentors
Crestwood – Yvonne Scott
Yvonne has always worked in education and has been lucky to have had the opportunity to work in a range of schools and roles. She is passionate about providing high class professional development for all, to ensure that students get the best educational experiences. Yvonne spent 5 years working as a LA mathematics adviser where as well as leading professional development sessions, she worked with teachers and leaders in their schools across all phases. Yvonne has been a senior leader in 3 schools (including 3 years as Head of School in a junior setting). Yvonne is currently part of SLT at Crestwood and head of the Mathematics faculty.
Eggar’s – Sarah Hopkins
Sarah is a History teacher (but also dabbles in Geography) and has taught in Hampshire schools for the past 6 years. Prior to this she has worked as an LSA, Cover Supervisor and taught English as an unqualified teacher in West Sussex schools since 2009. Sarah currently has responsibility for ITT at Eggar’s School and works with universities to deliver the PGCE course at Eggar’s as well as with three Teaching School Alliances including the Hampshire LEARN SCITT Partnership.
Harrow Way – Lyndsey Walker
Lyndsey is Curriculum Leader for Dance and Lead Practitioner at Harrow Way Community School. As part of her Teaching and Learning role she is professional mentor for the ITT trainees and also delivers whole staff CPD focusing on research based teaching and learning strategies.
Henry Beaufort – Sonia Atkins
I have been teaching for twelve years in a range of schools across Hampshire. During this time I have taken on responsibility for leading in three different Science departments and recently I have taken up a position as an Associate Senior Leader. Part of this role I particularly enjoy is the development of new teachers. Since moving into school leadership I have been able to develop this on a schoolwide level as Professional Mentor. We all appreciate the challenges we face in modern teaching, but developing new teachers is an enjoyable reminder of the reasons we came into teaching for, caring for students and supporting their progress and aspirations.
John Hanson – Charlotte Ferguson
Charlotte is an English teacher and current Head of year 11; she has been teaching for twelve years and has been involved in training and supporting staff for eleven of those. Charlotte signed up for an associate assistant head year which has continued and her role is ITT coordinator for the school.
Mountbatten – Siân Cumming
Siân is currently the Director of Learning at The Mountbatten School where she oversees teaching and learning across the school. Siân oversees the CPD for ITT, NQT and RQT teachers as well as leading a team of Lead Practitioners. Previously, Siân has worked as an English Advanced Skills Teacher.
Perins – Robyn Tourino
Robyn has been working at Perins as a Physical Education teacher for 11 years. She has been mentoring trainees and NQTs for over 10 years from a range of different providers and teaching route ways. Robyn is currently training as a TEEP (Teacher effectiveness and Enhancement Programme) 2 coach and is working with a core group of teachers at Perins to develop a coaching ethos among the whole staff.
Robert May’s – Jenny Robinson
Jenny is currently Director of CPD at Robert May’s School and has enjoyed working there for the last 11 years. Jenny’s current role allows her to work both at RMS and at other school developing staff, NQT’s and trainees. Jenny has a real passion for leading and carrying out action research both within her own school and accross the county. Jenny teaches science and has spent the last 5 years being Head of Science at RMS having been in the department for 11 years. This involved nurturing more experienced colleagues and mentoring NQT’s and Trainees from a range of providers.
Romsey – Nick Chafer
Nick has been teaching in Hampshire for the past 24 years and has been a mentor for 21 years. Nick is a Senior Leader responsible for Modern Foreign Languages. In addition to being the Professional Mentor, some of Nick’s Senior Team responsibilities focus on the development of Aspiring Middle Leaders and mentoring Lead Practitioners.
Thornden – Mark Buckley
Details to follow.
Lead Subject Tutors
Lisa Willis: Art & Design
Details to follow.
Keren Coles: Design & Technology
Keren has recently taken up the role of Head of the Design & Technology Department at Thornden School, leading a team of nine.
She began teaching in 1993 after studying at Loughborough University and has had 20 years of middle management experience in secondary schools in Surrey, Essex, Portsmouth and Hampshire. Keren has a proven track record of leading outstanding Design & Technology departments which achieve excellent results. Her specialisms in Design & Technology lie within Resistant Materials, Systems & Control and Graphics. She has been a GCSE examination moderator since 2000.
Keren has had whole school responsibility for developing the school’s NQT training, whole school Quality Assurance and she has developed and delivered CPD sessions both within school, to primary colleagues and to the Eastleigh consortium. Keren has also worked with the HIAS Design & Technology Inspector to facilitate training sessions within her department to demonstrate good practice to Hampshire Design and Technology NQT’s.
Hellen Smith: Drama
Hellen has worked as a Drama Teacher at Thornden School for eleven years and has been Head of Drama for the last two years. During her time at Thornden Hellen has enjoyed mentoring Trainees and NQTs from a variety of different providers and is a regular contributor towards CPD sessions for the LEARN SCITT Training Programme. Hellen has a passion for the arts and worked for several years as a professional actor before training to be a teacher.
Kate Piddington: English
Details to follow.
Sarah Hopkins: Geography
Details to follow.
Helen Bramwell: History
Helen has been teaching for ten years and has responsibility within her History Department, but also as the Careers and Work Related Learning Coordinator at Thornden School. Before teaching History Helen worked as an unqualified teacher in a specialist unit for students with Autism Spectrum Disorders, which remains an area of interest. Helen has mentored and supported SCITT students and NQTs within her department for a number of years.
Martin Hole: Mathematics
Martin is an engineering graduate who spent the first 10 years of his career working in deep level mining based in Southern Africa; he was Chief Engineer at the world’s richest gold mine before taking up an appointment as group consulting mechanical engineer based in Johannesburg.
After relocating back to the UK Martin completed a PGCE in Mathematics; he has spent 21 years as a teacher. Previously Martin has managed maths and ICT departments at a large Hampshire comprehensive school. Martin has contributed to PGCE courses at local Universities. Ten years ago Martin became an AST and has extensive experience providing school to school support having completed outreach programmes at numerous Hampshire schools.
Martin has been a guest speaker at several national conferences and was fortunate to have been part of a fact finding team sent by government to Shanghai in 2014.
Liz Stillman: Modern Foreign Languages
Liz is a modern languages teacher who has taught French and Spanish for over 20 years in the Secondary sector and has also worked as a KS2 teacher in primary schools in Hampshire. Liz also worked in the adult and higher education sector where she co-planned foundation degrees in early education. As a secondary teacher at Thornden, she has developed close links with local primary schools and she provides whole school INSET programmes, advice and regular support to MFL primary teams in the area. Liz has mentored and supported SCITT students for several years as well as inspiring vast numbers of pupils in her secondary classroom.
Rorie Whybro: Physical Education
Rorie has 15 years’ experience in secondary education as a teacher and is currently Director of Sport at Perins School (formerly a Sports College) where he leads a team of 8 PE specialists, in addition to overseeing the delivery of physical education in feeder primary schools. He has extensive experience in school, supporting teaching, learning and middle management initiatives across the range of subject areas at Perins. He has been involved with ITT for over 14 years, working closely with Chichester and Southampton Universities to select and support BA QTS, PGCE and GTP trainees. Rorie leads a department which has a reputation locally and nationally for outstanding and innovative physical education practice. He has worked with the Youth Sport Trust on various initiatives and has delivered workshops at both local and national events. Rorie keeps up to date with the latest methodology in the world of sports coaching by working with the RFU to support its Elite Player Development Pathway.
Gill Heron: Religious Studies
Gill has 20 years’ experience in secondary education as a teacher and is currently Head of RE at Thornden School where she leads a team of 4 RE specialists and has responsibility for Citizenship and SMSC. She has extensive experience in middle management. She is on the county Steering Group for RE and has delivered workshops on good practice at the annual Hampshire Leadership Conferences. She is a member of the Hampshire SACRE (Standing Advisory Council for RE) and has provided school to school support in teaching and learning for RE colleagues from other schools. She has been involved in ITT teacher training for over 14 years, contributing to the training of PGCE students at universities in the South of England. She has completed Leadership Pathways.
Phil Balmond: Science
Phil has been teaching for ten years after having completed a Masters Degreee (Hons) in BioChemical Engineering at the University of Bath and completing a PGCE (Hons) Physics. He has taken on various roles in the science department including NQT mentor and responsibilty for data, he was second in science for 2 years before becoming Head of Science, he is now in his third year in this role. Phil has mentored and supported SCITT students and NQTs within science for a number of years and has supported other Heads of Science over the last 2 years.