Governors

In his personal and professional life, Christian has demonstrated considerable commitment to personal development and growth, particularly with young people. Be it leading BA's apprentice, graduate and management development programmes, as Chair of his local Air Training Squadron or as Deputy Chair of Governors and Chair of the Remuneration Committee for a large sixth form college. He has extensive experience of corporate governance, oversight and scrutiny, especially in regulated environments. He is delighted to be HCS Chair of Governors and have the ability to contribute to such an important venture.

Admitted as a solicitor in 1975, David Ashcroft has worked in both private practice and commerce and since 2015 has been Senior Legal Counsel at a local solicitor. He operates primarily from their Hereford office.

Having qualified with a firm of solicitors in Lincoln’s Inn, London, he moved to the City to work as a solicitor in private practice in the sale, purchase, construction, finance and operation of ocean-going ships of many types: supertankers, combination carriers, container ships, and gas carriers. One such ship remained, until her scrapping a few years ago, the largest ship ever built.

In 1981 he went to work for his then biggest client to negotiate a financial reconstruction running into hundreds of millions of dollars. After two years the position had become unsalvageable, but the largest creditor immediately asked David and his future business partner to manage, operate and sell the ships mortgaged to them. Over the next five years, David and his partner secured similar contracts from other international banks.

In 1988, David sold out to his partner and returned to practice in the West End and Lincoln’s Inn before migrating to the Three Counties.

During his time with the local solicitor he has developed a practice working among the security and defence communities in the Three Counties and elsewhere. 

He is involved in the supervision, training and encouragement of trainee solicitors and junior to middle rank solicitors for which he draws on his extensive legal experience. It is this aspect of his work that encouraged David to apply in 2019 to become a governor of the school.

David’s late father became a teacher on returning to England after the Second World War and retired in 1979 from his position as Head of a very large comprehensive school in the Midlands. He therefore already has an inbuilt teacher and school manager perspective which he found of great value as his two sons grew up through the private sector and then on to Oxford and UCL.

Andrew has worked in education for 26 years. He has taught in primary schools in inner-city Nottingham and across Herefordshire. He has been headteacher and executive headteacher in three Church of England primary schools.

Andrew became a Church of England school inspector in 2011 and has conducted church school inspections in the Hereford and Worcester Dioceses.

In 2014, his school achieved an outstanding inspection from Ofsted and became a National Support School. Andrew became a National Leader of Education in 2015.

Andrew was the Executive Headteacher for St Thomas Cantilupe CE Primary School from 2012 until 2014, helping the school move from 'Special Measures' to a 'Good' overall judgement in 11 months.

In May 2018, Andrew was installed as a Lay Canon at Hereford Cathedral in recognition of his service to education in Hereford.

In 2019, his primary school was awarded an overall judgement of 'excellent' under the new SIAMS inspection framework.

Since September 2018, Andrew has been the Director of Education for the Hereford Diocese.

In January 2019 he became Chief Executive Officer for the Diocese of Hereford Multi-Academy Trust, which contains 15 primary and secondary academies serving the needs of almost 3000 children and young people within the Hereford Diocese.

Will Hanks qualified as a dentist from Guy's Hospital in 1985.

He moved to Hereford in 1990 and was a partner in Kyrle Street Dental Practice for 25 years and postgraduate tutor for Herefordshire for 10 years.

Will is a trustee of the Peace and Hope Trust.

As a hobby he makes musical instruments.

He has had three children educated at the school. His two sons were choristers in the Cathedral Choir.

Jonathan was born in Hereford and was educated at Hereford Cathedral School. He read Engineering at St John’s College Cambridge, and then completed a post-graduate course in production methods and management at Cambridge. 

He qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Price Waterhouse (now PwC) and spent the early part of his career in financial management with listed companies in the engineering and oil sectors. He worked for two privately owned groups before moving to the not-for-profit world.

He was financial director at the Greenwich Foundation as the former Royal Naval College buildings were restored. He was then financial director at two grant-making foundations where he restructured and managed the large investment portfolios. He is a CFA charterholder with the Chartered Financial Analysis Institute. 

He recently spent a year in Lyme Regis learning how to build boats. 

Jonathan was born in Herefordshire and educated at both HCJS and HCS, being a boarder in School House, Head Boy and Captain of Boats. Obtaining a Degree in Urban Estate Management, he established his own practice as a Chartered Surveyor in Ross-on-Wye and Hereford, which specialised in commercial property agency, building surveys and professional property matters, principally in Herefordshire and surrounding counties. He now undertakes property development on his own behalf. His two daughters attended Hereford Cathedral School, leaving in 2010. Jonathan still retains his love for rowing through his close involvement with Ross Rowing Club, established while a pupil at the School.

After working in the construction (housebuilding) industry for 25 years as a Commercial & Finance Director, Jacqui entered the world of education as Bursar of Hereford Cathedral School in 2009 before moving to King's School, Gloucester, where she remained until retiring in 2019.

Jacqui lives in Gloucester with her partner John, and since retiring has started to pursue new hobbies including setting up a small allotment to grow her own produce.

Jacqui has recently retired as Headmistress of Bromsgrove Preparatory and Pre-Preparatory School, an IAPS boarding and day school for boys and girls aged 3 -13 years, after 20 years service. Her previous educational experience included working in independent co-educational preparatory schools, an independent girls’ school as well as in maintained schools in Buckinghamshire, Dudley and Worcestershire. Jacqui has thirty five years of experience in teaching children from the Early Years to Year 8, and has also been a local authority advisory teacher.

Jacqui is married and has one daughter.

After Oxford, Nicholas spent most of his working life in teaching, first at Whitgift School in Croydon, and then for 31 years at Cheltenham College as, at various points, Head of Classics, Housemaster, Senior Housemaster, Director of Marketing, Assistant Chaplain and Senior Master.

He has had a house in Herefordshire since 1984, and moved there full-time in 2010 as Vicar of the Black Mountains Group and Rural Dean of Abbeydore. He is a Prebendary of Hereford Cathedral.

From 2010 to 2021, he was Deputy Chair of Governors at Longtown Community Primary School.

He is a Freeman of the City of London and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

His interests include reading, writing, music and gardening, but three springer spaniels tend to dominate his spare time.

Jonathan is a barrister practising in the fields of education and regulatory law. After spending nine years in Whitehall (responsible for the UK’s defence and security relations with the countries of the Nordic and Baltic region; cross-government peacekeeping and conflict prevention policy; and finally as head of the MOD’s public law and human rights policy and litigation team), and one on secondment to the voluntary sector (as Deputy Operations Director of a national health charity), he trained in law and is now nationally recognised as an expert in the regulation of education, schools, teachers, assessments and safeguarding.  His practice combines acting for teachers and school leaders facing misconduct proceedings brought by the Teaching Regulation Agency and Education Workforce Council with advisory work for regulators (including, most frequently, Ofqual), local authorities and schools.  He is ranked in both the Chambers and Partners UK Bar 2022 and Legal 500 2022 legal directories.

Jonathan is married (his wife, Felicity, is Head of Geography at HCS) with three children (all at HCJS), and has served as a governor of two state schools; as a charity trustee; as legally qualified chair of the Medical Practitioners Tribunal and fitness to practise panel chair for the Nursing and Midwifery Council and Social Care Wales; on the Safeguarding Case Management Group for Canoe Wales; as Chair of Salford City Council’s Standards Committee; and as statutory Independent Person for Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council. He is also a musician and spent a few years at the beginning of his career running an orchestra, as a semi-professional oboist and recorder player and teacher, and as head of pastoral care and later overall head of a residential school for students of English as a second language. Jonathan was educated at Chetham’s School of Music and holds a BA and MA in Geography (First Class) from New College, Oxford; an MSc in Nature, Society and Environmental Policy from Worcester College, Oxford; two postgraduate diplomas in law (both ranked first in his year) from Bristol Law School; and a Licentiateship diploma from the Royal Schools of Music.
 

Karen was born in New York and received a BA from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire before beginning a business career that has lasted for over 40 years. She worked in industry before embarking on managing her own businesses and has founded and run four businesses all focusing on human capital management and strategic planning. She still serves as Founder and Chairman of her most recent business in Human Resources outsourcing. She also served for 10 years as a Board Member of the Student Conservation Association.

Karen and her family moved to Herefordshire in 2004 and she has served as a Governor of Peterchurch Primary School, founded Dorstone’s Front Room, and served on the Dorstone Playing Field Committee. Karen is a Deputy Lieutenant of the County. Most recently she has served as a Founding Trustee and Director of NMITE – Hereford’s New Engineering Higher Education Institution – where she now serves as an Ambassador and the Spectris Foundation.

Lorraine holds a degree in Geography from University College Wales Aberystwyth and completed her PGCE at University College Cardiff. Lorraine's career journey has changed from its initial focus on geography to boarding and the associated pastoral care needs of pupils. Her role also has a strong focus on developing successful academic education for international students in the medium of English, and with a particular emphasis on full integration of those students in all things British. She started her teaching career as a Geography teacher at Lawnside School, Malvern in 1988, before moving on to King’s School, Worcester and then Wycliffe College, where she was Head of Geography and Housemistress. She moved to Malvern College where she was Senior Mistress and Head of Geography, before taking on a new role as Deputy Head of Malvern College Qingdao, China in 2012 and then Head in 2014. More recently, she was Principal of Bishopstrow College, an international study centre to prepare students for British boarding schools. In 2019, she moved to another school belonging to Inspiring Futures Education: Padworth College. Lorraine has now moved back to her home in Herefordshire after spending 34 years in boarding schools.

In her spare time, she enjoys reading crime novels and watching rugby. Lorraine is married and has four grown-up children and two small grandsons.