Courses

David Bowen, Richard Brown, Tim Kitching (Leading Edge)

Our Team

All of our training courses are co-facilitated. This is because we believe that co-facilitation ensures the highest possible quality of provision.

In almost all cases, both facilitators will be Directors of the company – two from David Bowen, Richard Brown and Tim Kitching – and, in all cases, at least one of the facilitators will be a Director. Occasionally, we do invite other colleagues to join in the facilitation but we only invite people who we know can add value to the course that is being offered.

 

David Bowen

David is an education professional with extensive and successful leadership experience as a Chair of Governors, local authority Service Manager and secondary school Head of Department. He specialises in school governance and leadership, governor development, school organisation and supporting schools causing concern.

Responsible for Governor Services for Wakefield Council, David led a team of around 50, all engaged in different roles, developing and delivering a highly-regarded and extensive programme of governor development, support, improvement and training services. He also managed the implementation of numerous school reorganisations, advised governing bodies seeking to federate or explore trust or academy status and provided support for schools causing concern. David is an expert trainer and now provides governor training and consultancy for several local authorities and many individual schools on a wide range of governance and leadership related issues.

David is currently a Governor at a newly-converted academy within a MAT and was until recently Chair of Governors at a primary school. He has previous experience as an Additional Governor and Chair of a secondary special school, member of the Interim Executive Board of a primary school in special measures and Governor of a Church of England primary school. He was a regional representative on the National Committee of Co-ordinators of Governor Services (NCOGS) for 7 years and is a former Ofsted-accredited inspector. He is also an assessor for Governor Mark.

 

Richard Brown

With 35 years’ experience in teaching, culminating as Principal of Minsthorpe Community College, Richard is particularly interested in strategic leadership and governance, school improvement, community and partnership links.

He led the creation of a successful, modern Community College, with Specialist Science status, at the heart of a regenerating ex-mining community. As well as having over 1800 young people and 300 staff, he was responsible for an on-site Conference Centre, Nursery, Sports and Fitness Centre, Cadet Centre and Adult Education.

Richard has held roles at local, regional and national levels and in 2009 was seconded to bring together the BSF Strategy for Change for Wakefield Council, which was recognised as an example of best practice. Before his recent retirement, Richard was involved in a number of academy conversions, capital projects, and coordination of local authority service provision.

As a governor for over 20 years (including Chair at a primary school), Richard brings insight to leadership and governance expectations from both sides of the boundary. He has also served on three Interim Executive Boards (IEBs), two as a professional Chair, all in schools in challenging circumstances. In all he has helped stabilise leadership, begun to raise standards and moved them into Multi-Academy Trusts. He is currently on the board of a newly formed MAT.

 

Tim Kitching

Tim’s 36 years in public service encompassed senior roles in leading HR and school improvement support for schools and colleges. Tim’s particular areas of interest are organisational behaviour, change management, governance and leadership.

He was a Principal Personnel Officer for a local education authority, with day-to-day responsibility for over fifty staff providing HR and front-end payroll support for over 7,000 staff in around 160 schools and other educational establishments. Latterly, he served on the senior leadership team of a school improvement service, with particular responsibility for quality assurance, before becoming Change Programme Manager for a local authority BSF programme and then taking responsibility for teams providing support for school governance, school place planning and school data. He has many years successful experience as a trainer and facilitator in different contexts and has been involved in the planning, delivery and review of training for governors since the 1990s and is a respected facilitator of National College programmes. He is an active member of the Chartered Management Institute and is currently a member of its national panel of Subject Matter Experts. His qualifications include an MSc in Leadership and Management and a BTEC Advanced Certificate in School Governance.

Tim has been a primary school governor for over twenty years, over that time serving as Chair at different times of three primary school governing bodies and in recent years has served on two Interim Executive Boards in primary schools in Special Measures. Since January 2015 he has been Chair of Trustees of an all-through (5-16) Free School which opened in September 2015 and is a trustee of a schools co-operative trust.

For more information on Leading Edge visit their website here

Hopwood Hall College

Free parking is available onsite - just press the buzzer at the barrier and say you're here for a REAL Trust event.

How to get here

By Road: The Rochdale campus is 2.6 miles from junction 20 off the M62. Follow the signs for Rochdale town centre

By Rail: Rochdale train station is a ten minute walk from the Rochdale Campus through the town centre. It is also a Metrolink station, Manchester’s light railway system, which links Rochdale with Oldham, Bury and Manchester City Centre.

By Bus: The Rochdale bus station is approximately 5 minutes’ walk from the Rochdale campus. There are frequent bus services throughout the borough which terminate in Rochdale.