Chair of Trustees
Niki Thomas is an education consultant based in the South of
England. She works with individual schools/academies, networks &
collaborations, teaching school alliances, MATs, local authorities and other
educational organisations. Formerly a Headteacher, a co-leader of a networked
learning community, a local authority consultant adviser (specifically on
collaborations and networks) and a leadership programme facilitator. Since 2007
she has worked in a variety of regional and national facilitation roles for the
former National College for School Leadership including regional leader, NLE trainer/broker
and models & partnerships associate. She was the Lead Associate for National
College for Teaching and Leadership for Southern England covering SE, SW and
London regions, strategically leading the work of the associate team to develop
teaching schools and school-based ITT. She has worked with three Research
Schools in England during the early phases of their development supporting
professional development planning. She currently works as a national associate
for Education Development Trust on the Schools Partnership Programme,
supporting clusters and local education systems to develop high quality, robust
collaborative school improvement and peer review practice across England and
North Wales. This has now expanded to include the MAT partnership programme
which facilitates peer to peer reviews between MATs. She has also worked with
Education Development Trust to develop a bespoke middle leadership programme
for schools in Alexandria, Egypt. Since 2021 she has worked as a partnerships
adviser to EDT to support the development of the delivery partner network for
NPQs and ECF.
Niki has extensive experience and
proven track record in educational consultancy, facilitation and development of
networks, leadership development and school improvement. She has an MA in
School Effectiveness from the University of Sussex and has undertaken extensive
facilitator training. She has worked on the facilitation of coaching training
as part of several leadership programmes and has engaged in bespoke coaching
for Executive Headteachers and Heads of Schools.