The Amethyst Academies Trust is a multi-academy trust and a not-for-profit charitable company limited by guarantee.

We are proud of our team of dedicated professionals who work tirelessly to support us in achieving our goals. 

Our multi-academy trust is a Wolverhampton based group of academies governed by a single set of Members and Trustees who are accountable to the Department for Education for the educational and financial performance of the academies in the trust.

As part of its remit, The Trust continues to drive up standards, being fully committed to the further development of its provision for its stakeholders. Our Local Governing Boards are therefore required to meet formally each term before reporting to the MAT Trust Board

Our Local Governing Boards consists of community (co-opted) members, parents, guardians, carers and staff. The skills set, expertise and commitment of each individual are fundamental, as the LGBs are critical to the work of our MAT Trust Board and overall governance arrangements of The Trust. 

Board of Trustees

The people responsible for determining the Trust’s strategic direction, including overarching responsibility for the three core functions common to school governing bodies:

• the Trust’s vision
• educational standards
• financial performance.

Our Trustees are a collection of unique, experienced individuals all of which share a core belief in the importance of education alongside a passion for improving the life-chances for all of the students within our trust. Our Trustees have a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of the Trust.

Our Trustee’s form the trust board and have overall responsibility and ultimate decision-making authority for all the work of the Amethyst Academies Trust, and in particular the running of each academy within our MAT.

This work is largely implemented via strategic planning and the setting of policy, holding the executive team to account and ensuring the oversight of financial control. It is managed through business planning, monitoring of budgets, performance appraisal, the setting and monitoring of standards and the implementation of quality assurance processes. In this work, the board is aided by a small number of subcommittees – as demonstrated in our governance structure.

Impact’s model of governance is designed to recognise the overall responsibility of the Trust Board; the line management of Headteachers by the CEO and the Executive Team; and the support and challenge of the Amethyst Ambassadorial Committee (the Trust’s regional Governing Board)

The law places accountability for the educational outcomes and financial diligence of the Trust firmly with the Trustees and the CEO as Accounting Officer. Much of this responsibility is located at Trust Board level. However, a fundamental principle for our Trust, is that effective governance is best delivered as close as possible to the point of impact of decisions. For this reason, we have developed a governance structure that delegates key accountabilities to our Governing Board via our scheme of delegation.

jim inglis

Trustee

Jim Inglis was, for many years, a regional director and a member of the Standard Chartered Bank Group specialising in commercial finance and loans. Prior to this, he was with the Department of Trade mainly involved with commercial relations and exports. More recently he ran his own insurance business. He has a degree in economics, is a Chartered Insurance Practitioner, and is a certified financial planner. In addition to being Chair of Governors at Aldersley High School, he is also chair of trustees of Circles Network a charity dedicated to social inclusion and advocacy, and a trustee of Vision Homes Association which supports people with complex and multiple disabilities.

bob stephenson

Trustee

After graduating from Bristol University with a degree in chemistry and following a career teaching chemistry, Bob was for 15 years a Secondary Headteacher in Wolverhampton (the last 10 years as Chair of ‘Wolverhampton Secondary Heads’ ; WSHT).

Subsequently Bob was a Secondary Headteacher Consultant for Social Inclusion for 6 years chairing the Secondary Social Inclusion Advisory Placement Panel (SSIAPP). He also acted as Branch Convenor for Wolverhampton ASCL (The Association of School and College Leaders.) In addition he is currently a Manager at the Wolverhampton Secondary PRU Federation.

Nicola Licata

Trustee

Nicola was designated as a National Leader of Education in 2018. Nicola Licata is the Chief Executive Officer of Amethyst Academies Trust (AAT). Nicola is the Accounting Officer and a Local Leader of Education for AAT. As an experienced Executive Principal she has led and supported a number of local schools including New Park BESD School and Dunstall Hill Primary School.
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Nicola was also Principal of the founding school: Aldersley High School in Wolverhampton. Having worked in a number of schools. Due to the success of the school she formed the Amethyst Academies Trust in 2016.
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Nicola has had a varied career that started in Primary education; she then went on to become a SENCO in Secondary school and an English teacher. Passionate that the trust places students first she is focussed on raising standards and transforming lives.

Helen Bourton

Trustee

Helen Bourton has been a highly successful educator for 32 years in Sandwell, Dudley and in Wolverhampton. She has a passion for supporting young people to develop their social, physical and mental wellbeing, through a broad and balanced curriculum and a full range of opportunities within and outside school life. Helen is an advocate of developing skill/personal qualities and empowering young people to enable them to take a strong place in society.

Helen believes that as a director she has an important part to play in raising school standards and her experience of governance will support her in this role.

She believes that the role of the governing body is absolutely key to the effectiveness of a school and the life chances for every young person.

Sue Reid

Trustee

Sue Reid has worked in the retail Travel industry for over 38 years having held many various positions has her career progressed. This has included many managerial roles, eventually attaining the position of General Manager of the Travel Group at Midcounties Co-operative Society. The Society trades in; food, funeral, childcare, healthcare, energy and Travel. She now is Head of Operations for the Energy group. She is also part of the wider Society senior Leadership Team. She has a Diploma in Management by the Chartered Management Institute.
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She has been at Moreton School as a Governor for a number of years and was appointed in September 2015 as Vice-Chair. She has chaired the Finance and General Purposes Committee.

Robert Grant

Trustee

Robert joined the Ameythst Trust in October 2018 and is currently an Education consultant. With over 20 years’ experience in senior management, primarily in the Further Education sector and more recently in the school sector, he has worked with organisations to improve teaching, learning and assessments, learner outcomes, leadership and management.

He has successfully led Higher Education teacher training and Ofsted Inspections to Good and Outstanding and one of the case studies was displayed on the Ofsted excellence gateway. His work with disengaged young people resulted in attainments that were recognised nationally and in Europe as a model of good practice.

As a pioneer for enterprise and innovation in Education, he successfully set up partnerships with SMEs and major blue-chip companies such as Apple, Roland Music and New Horizons and generated over £3.5 million for enterprise and innovation in Walsall. More recently he was part of the project team to that secured the successful opening of the Ladder Alternative Provision School.

David Williams

Trustee

David Williams is a successful business leader whose early career saw him leading UK based operations for blue-chip engineering organisations including GKN, Thyssen Krupp, Arcelor and Rolls Royce.  More latterly, David was CEO of two Private Equity backed engineering groups who operated within global Oil & Gas, Automotive, Aerospace and Environmental sectors.

 In addition to his role with Amethyst Trust, David is founder and owner of Valyrian Consultancy Limited, non-executive Director of Abbey Metal Finishings Group (PE-backed specialist coatings provider) and a mentor for Warwick Business School MBA students.

 David is a time-served electrical engineer, has completed the Cranfield General Management Programme and has an M.B.A. from Warwick Business School where he majored in Strategy and Marketing.

John Hopkins

Trustee

Jon is a retired headteacher with over 30 years of experience in Primary Education. His entire teaching career was based in Wolverhampton schools where he took a lead role in a school merger, and expansion and leading Fallings Park Primary from an Ofsted category to a happy, sustainable and good school.

He believes strongly in school collaboration in order to provide the best opportunities for students of all ages and backgrounds. Towards the end of his career Jon supported newly appointed leaders in the school management of Wolverhampton schools.

Jon has experience of governance in Primary and Secondary education, as well as Special Schools and a Pupil Referral Unit.

He continues to place high value on governance and recognises the importance of governors in both supporting and challenging leaders. in order that they can develop practice and ultimately improve school provision and outcomes for students.

Tracy Davis

Trustee

Tracy is a solicitor who qualified in 1998 and has experience in all aspects of residential conveyancing. She is also Law Society and CQS accredited.
Tracy is a Family Law specialist but in later years has diversified into Property Law.
She is a previous President of the Wolverhampton Law Society and now the Honorary Secretary for that Society. She is also Chair of Governors at Penn Hall School.
Away from work, Tracy enjoys spending time with her family and friends, cricket, travel, walking, yoga and attending live music events.  She is also a proud Wolves fan.

Committees

Academies