The CENTRAL TEAM

Kirsty is the founding CEO of The Three Saints Academy Trust. She has been a Headteacher in 3 Primary Schools and has 16 years of headship experience. During this time, she has led 2 schools from special measures to outstanding Ofsted judgements and has 9 years experience as an Executive Headteacher of various schools. Kirsty set up and ran a successful teaching school and was the strategic lead for North West Learning Partnership and the Senior Lead for North West Three Maths Hub. She works as a National Leader in Education across the North West.  Kirsty worked carrying out inspections for Ofsted for 6 years and has experience as a governor of a local High School. She has worked for the Archdiocese of Liverpool as Interim CEO, setting up a turnaround trust of 12 schools with academy orders.

Lisa has significant leadership experience spanning 25 years; currently the Deputy CEO at the Three Saints Academy Trust, NWLP Director of School Improvement and the Senior Lead for the North West Three Maths Hub. Lisa has held a number of system leadership roles previously working as a Maths Consultant, Teaching School Director and LA School Improvement Advisor. Lisa is responsible for all strategic and operational aspects of the work carried out, which involves liaising with wider leadership teams and multiple organisations. Lisa is responsible for planning, organising delivery, evaluating and quality assuring all work. Lisa represents the LWY region on the National Maths Hub Council. Wider aspects of Lisa’s work include: a qualified NPQ assessor, content developer for the new NPQs and School Governance (contributing to both primary and secondary boards) including a MAT Trustee. She is also the co-founder of Grant funded programmes Are you Really Reading? and Nurturing Young Mathematicians projects in association with the SHINE Trust.

Maria has worked in operations and finance for her whole career, more lately for 18 years as a School Business Manager at a three times outstanding primary school which was also a teaching school in its own right and led a successful primary ITT programme.  Recently joining the Trust as the CFOO Maria has previously held system leadership roles in School Business Management as both a Specialist Leader in Education and a Schools Resource Management Adviser.  Maria is a Fellow of the Institute of School Business Leaders and sits on their national advisory panel and the significant interest group for events.  She has offered support and recommendations with regard to school financial efficiencies both locally and nationally to maintained and academy sectors and has been a regular contributor to her professional publication.  Regularly attending and delivering workshops for colleagues at both national and local events she is an advocate for apprenticeships in education and was part of the steering committee for the approval of Level 6 professional qualifications for school business leaders.  Maria is Chair of Governors for a Secondary SEMH school in Lancashire.

Linda has over 20 years of experience working in primary schools.  She is Director of Wellbeing for The Three Saints Academy Trust and North West Learning Partnership.  Linda’s responsibilities include the safeguarding training of all staff and governance in the Trust.  The monitoring of the effectiveness of Trust strategy, policy and procedures.  She also provides supervision to the safeguarding and wellbeing teams and line manages the Attendance Officers.  Linda’s experience is in the areas of child protection, safeguarding and all aspects of pastoral care including mental health and wellbeing for children and families.    She liaises extensively with outside agencies whether statutory or voluntary in seeking additional resources and support for the schools in the Trust.

Darren has been teaching for 20 years and has taught Nursery to Year 6.  During his teaching career, he has had many different roles that has led him to his current role as Director of Maths for Three Saints Academy Trust.  He has worked with the Northwest Maths Hub 3 for 5 years and was fortunate to visit Shanghai as part of a government exchange programme. Darren is a Primary Maths Specialist, a PD Accredited Lead and is completing his NPQLTD (Leading Teacher Development).   His role within the trust is to develop the teaching and learning of maths across the three schools from EYFS to Year 6 through coaching, collaboration, and celebration. 

Maddy Barnes is an experienced primary school teacher and senior leader. Maddy still regularly teaches in the classroom and includes live-teaching sessions in most of her training. Maddy is an established educational author, writer, blogger and series editor for a range of educational publishers. She is a DfE QA proofer for grammar and reading and works within test development. Maddy is a KS2 Writing Moderator and blogs regularly for a range of educational settings. Maddy, the Executive Director of English for Three Saints, has worked with the North West Learning Partnership since 2013 providing high quality training for teaching and non-teaching staff.

Natalie is an experienced teacher who has worked across all primary phases. She has been a senior leader in The Three Saints Academy Trust (TTSAT) for several years, specialising in English and Special Educational Needs (SEN), completing the National Professional Qualification for Senior Leadership and accredited award for leadership of SEN. Natalie has also worked as a system leader in TTSAT - developing the teaching of English and reading through the SHINE project: Are you really reading? – by supporting schools across the North West, delivering training and evaluating practice.

As Finance & HR Assistant Jenny is responsible the Trust sales and purchase ledger, for providing HR support to the central team and schools in the Trust and providing finance assistance to the North West Learning Partnership team.  She joined the Three Saints team in 2019 having previously been a Customer Retentions Officer and having spent over 10 years in the finance sector.

As Head of Governance for TTSAT Helen is responsible for clerking all meetings and advising members, Directors and School Committee members on all aspects of Governance. She prepares everything needed for meetings and ensures they run smoothly. Helen joined the Team in 2023. Helen has over 20 years' experience of working in HR both in private industry and the public sector. Most recently, Helen has worked in education recruitment and marketing for Multi Academy Trusts.                      

Lorraine is an experienced and highly qualified School Business Manager with 17 years experience across 3 secondary schools.  She has been a member of SLT and has taken the lead on finance including delivering large capital projects and restructuring projects. Prior to working in schools she spent 10 years working in management positions in retail. Lorraine Joined the Team in 2023 and works alongside our CFOO and our schools’ SBMs.

Sarah has worked within the TTSAT since 2014. She started in Admin team roles working within the team for the Teaching School/St Helens TSA, School Direct and NW3 Maths Hub. Sarah worked closely with schools helping with CPD training needs and also recruiting and working with the School Direct students. She progressed into Senior Admin and worked with the team through the transition of converting St Helens TSA into NWLP.

Latterly Sarah has been Operations Manager at NW3 Maths Hub managing data management and finance systems. She managed the finance systems, dealing with SLAs and Finance Information documents for schools. Sarah also maintained the project information such as programme timelines, data submission deadlines and manages the NW3 website