Meet the Team

Anthony Benedict – CEO

Anthony has been a qualified teacher for 24 years.  He started his career as an English teacher.  He has worked in five different authorities and held senior roles, predominantly in secondary education, in six different schools.  As Deputy Head Teacher, Standards and Effectiveness, he was a key player in moving Wright Robinson College from requires improvement to outstanding in just five years.  He is currently the Executive Head Teacher of Tameside Pupil Referral Service which he has transformed from Requires Improvement to good in eighteen months.  

Last year he completed a diploma in trauma and mental health and gained practitioner status.  He is currently studying the National Professional Qualification in Executive Leadership and will complete the course in May 2023. A quarter of his current role is to reduce permanent exclusion across Tameside. He chairs and leads a headteacher’s exclusion groups and has created an innovative outreach programme which focuses on a proactive, relational approach. 

He is a member of the Violence Reduction Unit steering group for Greater Manchester and the Greater Manchester Trauma and Attachment working party.  Instead of responding to symptoms, he is passionate about gaining an understanding of the root cause of some of the issues young people and their communities face.

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.