Meet the Team

Anthony Benedict – CEO

Anthony has been a qualified teacher for 27 years. He started his career as an English teacher and has worked in five different authorities and held senior roles, predominantly in secondary education, in six different schools. He holds a National Professional Qualification in Executive Leadership and a Diploma in trauma and mental health.

Roughly five years ago he left mainstream education for alternative provision. It seemed to him that the school system was “losing” too many children, even when some of them were hidden in plain sight. He had recognised that if children were tired or hungry or scared then they weren’t going to be able to learn. He had a simple idea that if schools could meet these very basic needs, it might help prevent some of the so-called behavioural problems that were so prevalent and seemed to escalate so quickly. After his first day in charge of a Pupil Referral Unit he realised that he needed to unlearn all he had previously thought about how schools work and start again. He fell down what he likes to refer to as a trauma and attachment rabbit hole and hasn’t looked back
since.

He has become unashamedly evangelical about what he has learnt in terms of neuroscience and childhood brain development and cannot believe that anyone who wants to work in schools or with children isn’t provided with this as prerequisite training before they are taught how to teach.

He has spent the last four years developing Relational Inclusion and has worked with anyone and everyone who is prepared to listen including the Violence Reduction Unit, the police, Manchester University, and of course primary, secondary, and special schools and PRUs.

He is absolutely on a mission to change the world.  His book, Educating Everyone – an introduction to relational inclusion will be on sale from April 2025

Deputy CEO – Dr Louise Owen

Louise has been a qualified teacher for 23 years within Primary Education. She has worked within three different local authorities and has held senior positions in three different schools. She has been a head teacher for 13 years and is currently the head teacher of Broomwood Primary School in Trafford.

Louise has supported a school that went into special measures in an executive capacity. She has been a facilitator on management courses with Best Practice. She currently sits on Trafford’s Safeguarding Board and the Funding Forum to represent other head teachers in the local authority.

Louise has a Doctorate in Education and has recently gained her NPQEL. She is currently studying a PGCert in Trauma and Attachment.

Chief Financial Officer – Eddie Wortley-Shotton

Eddie is the ACT CFO and joins us with over ten years finance and business operations leadership experience in the education sector having worked in similar roles across a number of academy trusts in the North West and West Midlands.  Eddie is also a DfE accredited School Resources Management Adviser (SRMA) and a Specialist Leader of Education (SLE). Most recently Eddie has been an independent finance and business consultant supporting a group of local authority schools converting to become academies.