Governors’ Information and Duties

Ruth has been a Non-Executive Director of Birmingham Children’s Trust since 2017, where she joined the newly established ‘shadow board’ to set up an independent trust. Ruth is extremely proud of the progress they made which saw them being removed from Special Measures, and the progress which this crucial service continues to make. Ruth has got to know Birmingham well, having taught there for 40 years, including 20 years as a Headteacher / Executive Headteacher in the Northfield area. Ruth moved to Northfield from Holte School in Lozells to become Deputy Headteacher at Shenley Court School. Seven years later she crossed the A38 to become Headteacher of Bournville School and Sixth Form Centre. It was then an underperforming school, but sustained improvements led to it becoming a Leading Edge, High Performing School and one of the first Business Enterprise Colleges nationally. In 2005 when Shenley Academy‘s predecessor school was placed in Special Measures, Ruth was seconded by the Local Authority to lead improvements, taking it out of Special Measure to Outstanding in four terms. Ruth subsequently led both schools before she took the opportunity to become Principal Designate for the new Shenley Academy. Ruth’s first task was to work with architects to plan the new building, then with staff and students to set up the new school. It became one of Birmingham’s first academies, innovative and highly effective, building strong links with the community, other schools and a wide range of sports, business and arts organisations, reflected in the Artsmark Gold Award. Ruth remained there as Principal until her retirement in 2016. Ruth was a member of the Governing Body of the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital Birmingham for seven years during the period which saw the planning and inception of its superb new building.

“Diversity gives rise to better solutions”

Birmingham Education Partnership CEO and formerly the first Chair of the Birmingham Education Partnership. Tim has been a National Leader in Education (NLE) and a Birmingham Headteacher from 2003 to 2016, during which time he ran an outstanding school that was distinctive for its leading work in inclusivity and the Arts. Tim also led on the setting up of an alternative provision Free School, sat on Birmingham’s Inclusion Commission and has championed BEPs’ working with Birmingham & Solihull CCG to establish city-wide mental health work in schools. In his spare time, Tim runs a charity structuring residential activities for troubled children.

Tim has lived and worked in Pakistan and India where he learnt Urdu. He is a senior sailing instructor and has a long standing com-mitment to the Arts in Education reflected now by his role in gov-ernance in this sector.