About

Matt Potts

CEO

Matt has over 20 years’ experience within education, ranging from headteacher, school improvement advisor, MAT director and local authority strategic lead. He is the CEO of LPP. Matt joined LPP in 2020 after a successful period of leading early years for a large local authority within the West Midlands. Matt had previously worked as a school improvement advisor for a large, multi-academy trust and has supported schools across the Country in raising standards and supporting children. He has trained to assess the National Professional Qualification for Headship and has provided training in early years, leadership and curriculum development for schools over many years.  Previously he was a head teacher for a large primary school in Coventry. 

Jo Holland

Business Support

Jo Holland joined Leicester Primary Partnership on 1st April 2019 and is Business Support Officer for both Leicester Primary Partnership and School Improvement Leicester

Jo has been supporting SIL from its inception.  She has previously worked for Local Authorities in finance, early years and education.  Jo has a wealth knowledge about LPP, SIL, partner schools and stakeholders; please contact her if you would like more information.

Annette Montague

Chair of Directors

Annette has worked extensively across the education sector supporting schools to raise standards and advising on issues including policy, curriculum and leadership development. Currently, Annette is a Strategic Director for Academies at Greenwood Academies Trust with a range of responsibilities focused on improving primary academy performance. She was formerly the Head of Education Performance at Leicester City Council, responsible for strategic and operational school and Early Years improvement in the city. Prior to this, she had a range of national school improvement and raising achievement roles including Education Director at the Youth Sport Trust and National Science Coordinator at the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust. She gained the National Professional Qualification for Headship, an MBA in Educational Leadership, was a facilitator and coach with (now) Ambition Institute and is an accredited Challenge Partner Reviewer.

Jill Harrold

Director

I have been teaching in Leicester Schools for 35 years. I started as an NQT in the county and moved to the city several years later. Whilst my children were young, I worked as a supply teacher all over the county in many different schools with many different age groups from nursery to Yr 6. I covered short-term and long-term contracts. As my children grew, I took on class teacher responsibilities at Catherine Infant School. I was a subject leader, one of the first cohort to undertake the SENDCo award and a SENDCo for 7 years. I was appointed as Deputy Headteacher for 3 years and have been the current Headteacher of Catherine Infant for the last 5 years. During this time, I led the school through an Ofsted subject fact-finding visit for Science and Healthy Eating, a 1-day S8 Ofsted and, in 2019, under the new framework, a 2-day S5 Ofsted where we achieved an Outstanding grading. My personal interests in education have centred very much on Early Years and infant education. I have particular interest in SEND, fueled by the struggle in finding the right help for my dyslexic son years ago. As a leader, I strive to ensure every child is nurtured, has an exciting and challenging learning experience and is as well prepared as possible for the next stages in their learning career.

Becky Smith

Director

Becky joined SDSA in 2017 as a Project Manager and has since worked on a range of projects across the education sector locally, regionally and nationally.

This includes supporting the maturity of the Teaching Schools and their evolving role with the education sector across the East Midlands, South Yorkshire and Humber. Becky coordinates and facilitates leadership development programmes and regional SEND networks, as well as undertaking and presenting a variety of research reports.

Becky has a degree in Early Childhood Studies, Level 4 Certificate in Professional Marketing and is a qualified Market Researcher.

Pete Sloan

Director

Pete currently works as the School Strategy Manager at SDSA. Previously, he taught in Leicester primary schools for over 20 years, and much of this time was in a senior management role. He has been working at SDSA for almost 6 years and has been involved in a number of school improvement initiatives, particularly in the Derby Opportunity Area.

Pete provides direct school support for maths and is assistant maths hub lead at the East Midlands West Maths Hub. He also sits on the strategic board for the East Midlands South Maths Hub. Pete works closely with local research schools and the EEF to support a number of initiatives in the East Midlands which focus on raising attainment for disadvantaged pupils.

Pete provides strategic input within a number of projects and initiatives designed to support Leicester City schools.

Jo Badge

Director

Before coming into teaching, Jo worked in higher education. After completing a PhD in plant virology, she worked on providing support to academics in eLearning, was the first person to introduce plagiarism detection software at the University of Leicester and published papers on education technology. Jo’s interest in teaching developed further, and she qualified as a primary teacher and Google-certified teacher in 2012. She has taught in Leicester schools, moving from NQT in the county to Computing lead at Rushey Mead Primary. She then became year group lead and, finally, assistant head.

Whilst at Rushey Mead Primary, she set up a highly successful Computing Schools network group and became a CAS Master teacher of computing. She taught computing to the whole school and was awarded two Leicester Education awards, one for education technology and the other for inspirational teacher of the year. Appointed as assistant head at Catherine Junior School in 2019, she supported the school through COVID and then became its headteacher in May 2021.