About Us
Everyone at Castle Phoenix Trust is committed to high standards and takes pride in their work, regardless of their role, recognising the part they play to make a difference.
Our Trust specialises in ‘leadership’. Leadership development underpins all our work. We believe that most school processes, change, teams, engagement, innovation and collaboration stand or fall on the quality of leadership. Each leader is unique and we want all our leaders to develop emotional intelligence and deepen their knowledge, skills and leadership attributes to be effective. We therefore have a commitment to consciously develop leadership capacity at every level, building self -awareness, confidence, and initiative. There is no better way to ensure our Trust stays effective than by challenging, nurturing and enabling our staff.
CPT Leaders
Our Headteachers lead learning and excel through working together with their strong school -based teams and also more widely across and beyond our Trust. They are proud of their school achievements and are always willing to share good practice.
Central team leaders lead high performing teams who add value to our academies and are committed to support schools so they can concentrate on improving outcomes for our children.
CPT Support Staff
Our support and admin staff are the backbone of our organisation and are specialists in their areas of responsibility. Our annual support staff conference has a focus on staff well being and is a way of recognising the importance of all staff and their right to quality training.
CPT Teachers
Our teachers are highly effective in the classroom, both in the uncompromising quality of their teaching and in the perceptive and individualised attention they give to pupils and students to ensure that they learn effectively. They are passionate about the subjects they teach and dedicated to the children in their care.
Our teachers are carefully recruited and expertly supported to make sure they, like our pupils, are always performing well. We provide an annual learning and teaching conference which all our staff love and value.
Meet Our Team
Michele Marr, CEO
Michele is the Chief Executive of The Castle Phoenix Multi Academy Trust
Becky Clare
Becky is the Trust Support Lead for Quality of Education at Castle Phoenix Trust
Helen Harrison
Helen is the Director of Finance and Operations and Company Secretary for the Trust
Michele Marr
CEO
Michele is the Chief Executive of The Castle Phoenix Multi Academy Trust which comprises three secondary and two primary schools. Michele has experience of building capacity to sponsor academies.
Michele’s background and experience has involved working as a Local Authority School Improvement Advisor in special, primary and secondary phases, during which she also trained as an Ofsted inspector. Michele’s subject expertise is Mathematics and ICT and she has significant experience developing these areas.
Since 2006, as a NLE, Michele has been involved in supporting other schools to become even better and as a System Leader for pupil premium. Michele’s interests and fields of specialism are developing outstanding leadership, quality assurance, and school self-evaluation. Michele is extremely proud of the team she has developed to drive forward the quality of teaching and learning and has initiated some creative approaches to promote effective learning.
Becky Clare
Support Lead for Quality of Education
Becky is the Trust Support Lead for Quality of Education at Castle Phoenix Trust. She is passionate about making a difference to the lives of the young people and staff through ensuring that Learning and Teaching is the best that it can possibly be. Becky has a clear understanding of school improvement, building positive working relationships and generating the buzz of learning in the classroom. She recognises the importance of leaving nothing to chance.
Becky believes that valuing and developing people through the correct levels of support and challenge is fundamental to school improvement. She is able to mentor or coach colleagues at different stages of their careers and knows how to build strong, reflective and strategic teams.
Prior to working for Castle Phoenix Trust, Becky began her career in the English classroom and continues to find teaching extremely rewarding, whether she is delivering her own lessons, joint planning or team teaching. It is this love of teaching and her belief that all children deserve the best education possible that has seen her move into leadership roles where she has been instrumental in transforming Learning and Teaching in challenging circumstances. Becky honed her own pedagogy and practice in her English AST role in Warwickshire and developed this further across the curriculum in Leadership roles responsible for whole school Learning and Teaching and Continuous Professional Development. In order to enhance her practice with research, she completed a Masters in Leadership and Management from Warwick University and sees herself as a lifelong learner.
Helen Harrison
Director of Finance & Operations and Company Secretary
Helen is the Director of Finance and Operations and Company Secretary for the Trust. Helen came from an accounts background, before commencing work at Caludon Castle School 14 years ago. This was the same day the builders came to site to begin the building of Caludon’s fabulous new school, which Helen was lucky enough to be involved with up to completion. The journey proved a progressive one from that day onwards.
Helen has a strategic, technical and leadership role to ensure sound appropriate financial governance and risk management arrangements are in place. Helen also ensures that value for money, regularity and probity are met, this also includes the Trust premises.
Ian Houghton
Head of Estates
Ian is the Head of Estates. Ian joined Castle Phoenix Trust in August 2017. Before joining the trust Ian was the Facilities Manager for the PFI provider at Caludon Castle School. Prior to this, he was the Premises Manager at a large secondary Academy in Sandwell.
Ian is responsible for the strategic planning of each schools facilities. This includes the monitoring of the day to day maintenance of each site, long term premises development / improvements, statutory maintenance, project management, catering, cleaning and health and safety.
Ian works with each school’s site management team to support them in delivering a high quality service to the staff and students at their school.
Ian is extremely passionate about ensuring that the students at each of our schools have clean, safe and modern buildings.
Ian has been a member of the British Institute of Facilities Management for a number of years.
Karen Steele
Deputy Head of Operations
Karen is the Deputy Head of Operations and her role is to oversee Governance and Human Resources. In addition Karen provides Executive Assistant support to the CEO liaising with Headteachers, Senior Leaders, Governors and Trustees across the Trust.
Karen supports Governance across the Trust; organising, attending and Clerking all Trust Board, Central Committee and Local Governing Body meetings.
Karen also oversees key specialist functions, including HR, Media/PR, communication and risk management and leads on allocated projects and events.
Rob Strang
Primary lead for Learning and Teaching
Emma Phillips
Trust Lead for MIS and Data
Emma is the Trust Lead for MIS and Data and is responsible for producing a range of reports and systems to support the improvement of performance in our Trust and schools and has recently project managed the implementation of a new Management Information System (MIS).
Her role is to oversee the running and development of the MIS and associated platforms across the MAT, ensuring they are useful, valuable and accessible.
She is responsible for updating Key Performance Indicators and supports with data management across the Trust; setting up and reviewing data systems, analysing, problem solving and developing solutions and strategies to support school improvement.
Emma is also the Trust’s Wellbeing Ambassador.
Charlotte Warmington
Head of People Team
Charlotte is the Head of People for Castle Phoenix Trust. Charlotte is responsible for leading the Trust’s People Team and the People function.
As Head of People, Charlotte is responsible for all areas of HR for the Trust, including employee relations, leadership development and strategic workforce planning.
She started her journey into HR studying at Coventry University, with extensive experience spanning over 15 years in a range of sectors including education, retail, and travel.
She is passionate about creating inclusive HR practices and building strong, inclusive workplace culture, using data-driven insights to inform HR decisions. Her cross-industry experience enables her to adapt HR practices to meet the evolving demands of diverse organisational landscapes.