Kathryn, an experienced HR professional, is already familiar with our Trust family of schools as, in her former role, as a HR manager at Education Personnel Management (EPM), she met regularly with Principals and our senior team advising them on employment law issues and individual cases. She is now working alongside existing HR personnel in schools to offer support and guidance and provide a more integrated service, sharing best practice and ideas.

Kathryn has always specialised in the education sector, is an Associate member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and has a Master’s degree in Human Resource Management.

She said: ‘My HR background has always been education based. Doing this sort of role is two pronged; one side is knowing about employment law and how the changes can affect our staff. The second part is all about knowing the rules and regulations in education, it such a niche area and very different to working in a corporate environment.

‘A lot of my job involves updating policies and procedures, looking at every single one from a people perspective to see how they affect our staff and ensuring they are compliant. A large part will also be developing strategies to support staff learning and development, wellbeing across the Trust, looking at what benefits we offer and outlining why people should come and work for us. It is about offering support, benefits and training as well as recruitment and retention.’

Kathryn works very closely with CEO Dr Andrew Campbell and the senior team, including Debbie Tysoe, Tim Laws and Chris Stewart and the positive ethos of the Trust is one of the reasons she wanted to work here:

‘I built such a good relationship with the senior team here that when I became aware of the job I thought it was a really good opportunity. Not only did I enjoy working with the Trust in my previous role, the HR Manager role was a brand new position that I could help shape and develop.

‘It helped knowing the origins, ethos and culture here. Finding a Trust that matches your work ethic and philosophy played a big part in my decision to apply. There is a real interest in doing the right thing for our staff, a desire to really look after and value our people. We have just over 1000 staff and everyone is doing a really important job so they need to be looked after, just as much as our students.’

Kathryn will be liaising closely with Principals and our Director of Teaching School, Cristina Taboada Naya to develop training opportunities, especially for support staff.

‘Learning and development isn’t necessarily about getting a promotion, it is about what you want to do within your role, how do you want to shape it? If people have HR queries at school level they should go to their line manager first, however if they have ideas about things they want to see developed across the Trust I would be more than happy to hear from them. Good communication with staff at all levels is a key factor for success.’