Secondary

Sir Jon Coles

Since January 2012, Jon Coles has been Group Chief Executive of United Learning.

Ben Antell

Ben Antell is the recently appointed Director of Secondary Academies in United Learning. Before taking up this role, Ben was a Regional Director in the trust and previous to that an Executive Principal with a responsibility for schools in Bournemouth and London. Ben is passionate about school improvement and the belief that education is the key to social mobility and future success. Ben also works as an Ofsted inspector in the south-west and counts himself fortunate enough to have worked with some of the leading educationalists in the country through both his Regional Director, Executive Principal and Ofsted roles.

Fiona Boulton

Fiona became Director of Independent Schools in September 2022. She originally joined the organisation in 1995 when it was the Church Schools Company; it later became United Learning. She was Head of Guildford High School from 2002 – 2022. Guildford High became a Teaching School in 2013 and Fiona was appointed an NLE, leading the United Learning Teaching School Alliance from 2013 - 2020.

She has a variety of Governance roles; she is an Associate Director of Cumbria University (since 01.06.21), she is on the Governing body of Epsom College (since 01.11.09) and she is a member of the ‘Learning Partners Academy Trust’. Fiona is on the Advisory Board of the School Partnerships Alliance and she has helped to establish the West Surrey Partnership of all the state and independent schools in the Guildford area. She was Chair of HMC in 2019-2020, and on the Advisory Council of the Institute for Ethical AI in Education (IEAIED) (2018 – 2021). In 2023, Fiona was awarded an OBE in the New Year Honours list for services to education.

Stephen Adcock

Steve taught History in three London academies, including two senior leadership roles. He has now been with United Learning for nearly 10 years, initially leading on curriculum and subject support and now as a Regional Director. Steve is also an Ofsted inspector. Steve has a Master’s in Education Management and has recently gained the National Professional Qualification for Executive Leadership.  Steve loves working for United Learning because it provides the chance to visit schools up and down the country and work towards ensuring that all pupils get a great deal when they step through our doors.

Charlie Cutler

Since leaving the classroom, Charlie has spent more than 6 years in curriculum policy and development. She worked in curriculum policy at the Department for Education, leading research projects and engaging with thought leaders in the field. Since joining United Learning in 2019, Charlie has led the development of the primary curriculum, ensuring that it is well sequenced, is built upon United Learning’s evidence-informed pedagogies, and meets our teachers’ needs. She also has oversight of the secondary curriculum, ensuring consistency and progression from EYFS to KS3 and beyond.

Brian Doyle

Amanda Whitehead

Ben Littlewood

Ben has worked in education for over 20 years, as a secondary school science teacher, Advanced Skills Teacher, senior leader and advisor. He joined United Learning as the Science Advisor in January 2016, before becoming Senior Science Advisor in 2018.

Ben has worked in several schools on developing science teaching, both as an AST and as a local authority advisor, as well as leading on teaching and learning across a whole school. Ben also has a MA in Education, with a focus in the impact of feedback on students learning.

Alicia Shanks

Alicia joined United Learning as a History Adviser in 2021, offering direct support to schools in the North of England. She has a keen interest in the education sector which resulted in her completing her BA Hons degree in History and Education Studies and led to her developing this further by completing an MA in Education. Alicia has worked in several roles throughout her career so far including Head of History, Head of Humanities and Lead Practitioner with whole school teaching and learning responsibilities. During the pandemic she also supported remote learning for all pupils nationally by creating and filming lessons for Oak Academy.

Ben Newborn

Caroline Goss

Caroline has been a teacher of French and Spanish for over ten years, teaching from KS2 to KS4 in both state and independent sectors. Caroline spent most of her career working in an outstanding central London academy, starting out as an MFL teacher but along the way holding the positions of KS3 coordinator and Head of MFL before joining the academic Senior Leadership Team. In 2021, Caroline joined United Learning as an MFL Curriculum Writer before becoming a Subject Adviser later that year.

Ian Miller

Shaun Dowling

Shaun’s background includes spells as a head of PE; a Director of PE and Sport in a specialist Sports College; deputy head in two secondary schools; and in a national role as Head of Raising Achievement for the Youth Sport Trust. As such Shaun is well placed to support subject leaders across the group in both improving their PE and school sport provision and in using sport to drive school improvement.

Catherine Barker

Catherine joined United Learning in 2015, having led performing arts faculties in London schools. She began her career as the first Teacher First music teacher in 2004. Now working in the Partnership Team, alongside support and advisory to the teachers in the group she also leads groupwide performance events, such as 'MUSICFest', ‘Carmen’, ‘Green Love!’, 'Zimbe!' and ‘Wassail!’– recognised at the Music Teachers Awards as ‘Best Classical Music Education Initiative 2018’.

An experienced music educator, Catherine holds an MA in Music Education from the IoE. In the trust she leads groupwide curriculum development for music and subject provision for Music and Drama teachers as part of the group initial teacher training programme, United Teaching. 

Alongside her groupwide role she currently is the President of the Music Teachers’ Association and has been appointed to the monitoring board for the DfE's National Plan for Music Education, having been on the original panel for the NPME in 2022. She is also Chair of Paddington Academy local governing body, a secondary school that has recently been recognised as Outstanding by Ofsted. 

Prior to teaching, Catherine was a scholar at the Royal Academy of Music and Trinity College, Cambridge, and has performed extensively including on Radio 3 and professional recordings as a cellist and singer. 

You can follow Catherine and the work in United Learning here: @United_Music1

Adriano Di Salvo

Adriano has worked for United Learning for 11 years, during this time he has worked as Head of Art at Kettering Buccleuch Academy and as a SLE across the trust. Adrian’s SLE work has allowed him to visit a number of our schools across the country, giving support on KS3 curriculum and helping to improve outcomes at KS4 and KS5.

During the pandemic Adriano led a team of teachers to design a key stage 3 art curriculum, create and record lessons for Oak National Academy.

Adriano has recently written for the NSEAD on how the trust is using the ARAEA checklist to improve diversity and representation across the United Learning art curriculum.

Adriano now joins the subject adviser’s team alongside his work as a lead practitioner at Kettering Buccleuch Academy.

Sarah Horn

Sarah has over 12 years of experience working in secondary education in the South of the country. After starting as a geography teacher in 2010, she moved into middle leadership through a Head of Geography and then a Head of Humanities role.  In 2015, Sarah moved into the sphere of special education needs and was a SENDCo for over 8 years and has recently held an Assistant Principal position. Sarah currently works as the Secondary Inclusion Adviser for United Learning, which she initially began in 2021. She is passionate about providing strategic guidance and support to schools nationally on effective SEND provision, to reduce the attainment gap and ensure students with SEND thrive.

Sam Shaw

Stephen Adcock

Steve taught History in three London academies, including two senior leadership roles. He has now been with United Learning for nearly 10 years, initially leading on curriculum and subject support and now as a Regional Director. Steve is also an Ofsted inspector. Steve has a Master’s in Education Management and has recently gained the National Professional Qualification for Executive Leadership.  Steve loves working for United Learning because it provides the chance to visit schools up and down the country and work towards ensuring that all pupils get a great deal when they step through our doors.

Ed Charlwood

Ed has nearly two decades of experience teaching and leading Design & Technology in both state and independent schools. He also co-founded Design Education CIC, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the next generation of designers and makers. He leads D&T teacher training for Teach First and the National Institute of Teaching.

Ed joined United Learning in November 2023 as the Secondary Curriculum Lead for Design & Technology. He works extensively on developing forward-looking curricula underpinned by the judicious use of Design Thinking methodologies and modern technologies to support student decision-making.

Christine Raeside

Chris Raeside is a secondary Regional Director for academies in the south. She joined United Learning in September 2017 following 7 years working for Ofsted as one of Her Majesty’s Inspectors. For her last three years with Ofsted, Chris was a senior HMI, working in the South West, overseeing and quality-assuring inspection throughout the region. She is an experienced secondary senior leader, working in schools and local authorities in two London authorities and, since 2005, in Hampshire, where she lives.

Dino Di Salvo

Dino is Regional Director for the Yorkshire Cluster and Parkside Community College in Cambridge. He also holds the position of Principal at Kettering Buccleuch Academy, an all-through school which has improved rapidly under his leadership and has won a Pearson Silver Award this year for Secondary School Of The Year: Making A Difference. Alongside his other roles Dino has guided many of United Learning’s aspiring leaders through the completion of the group’s NPQH programme.

Tom Bennett

Tom Bennett was a teacher in the East End of London for thirteen years. Currently he is the Director and founder of researchED, a grass-roots, teacher-led project that aims to make teachers research-literate and pseudo-science proof.

Leon Wilson

Leon Wilson currently works as a Regional Director in United Learning and an Executive Headteacher for The Hurlingham and The Elms Academies. Leon joined United Learning as Senior Vice Principal at The Hurlingham Academy in 2015 and was subsequently promoted to Headteacher in April 2016. He took the school from 42% A*-C in 2014 to 93% 4+, 88% 5+ and 48% 7+ in 2022. This went from a sink school in the borough of Hammersmith and Fulham to the highest achieving state school in the borough in 2022 and the 9th best school in the country for progress (+1.32) the same year. The Elms Academy also achieved its best ever results in 2022 with a progress score of +0.73, ranking number 1 in the borough of Lambeth.

Leon champions high quality teaching and learning in all of his schools. He believes that children deserve the teachers with the best subject knowledge, the deepest passion for teaching their 
subject, the greatest willingness to serve children and the highest aspirations for them. There is a no excuse culture for students in which he expects them to learn, make progress and achieve incredible results regardless of their socio-economic, ethnic or family background. 

Doug Lemov

Stephen Adcock

Steve taught History in three London academies, including two senior leadership roles. He has now been with United Learning for nearly 10 years, initially leading on curriculum and subject support and now as a Regional Director. Steve is also an Ofsted inspector. Steve has a Master’s in Education Management and has recently gained the National Professional Qualification for Executive Leadership.  Steve loves working for United Learning because it provides the chance to visit schools up and down the country and work towards ensuring that all pupils get a great deal when they step through our doors.

Suzanne Howard

Suzanne joined United Learning in 2012, having previously worked at the Department for Education. She is passionate about creating development opportunities for all staff in schools, and nurturing an inclusive environment, where diverse teams can flourish.