Board of Trustees
Jonathan Pallas – Chair of the Board of Trustees
Jonathan joined the Trustee Board in 2024. He has extensive experience of working at a MD/VP/Director level in businesses in the UK and across the globe in the sectors and logistics, supply chain and packaging. Most recently he was Managing Director of a plastics recycling business start-up, supporting the creation of a more circular economy in commercial and consumer packaging.
For the past 13 years he has chaired a leading charity provider in London within the homeless sector. He is delighted to join Auriga, supporting their vital work in the local community providing a first-class education to those with special educational needs.
Jonathan lives in Teddington with his partner and dog, and enjoys running, rugby, scuba diving and classic cars.
Address: c/o Strathmore School, St Richard Reynolds Catholic College, Station Road, Twickenham TW1 4DQ
Appointed by Academy Members
Term of Office: 01/07/24 - 30/06/2028
Paul Roberts - Vice Chair
Paul is a Clarendon Parent and has been a Trustee since 2017. He has 3 children, of which two have special educational needs.
As well as being a qualified Electrical Engineer, Paul has worked in Investment banking since 2004 in various roles from trading to software development. Paul is currently taking a career break to spend time with family and indulge his interests in technology.
Appointed by Academy Members
Term of Office: 07/12/17 - 06/12/21, 08/12/21 - 07/12/25
Sarah Baker
Sarah has extensive governance experience at a number of schools, including a special school. She has been Chair of governors. She was an education lawyer in Surrey and has experience in the finance and HR areas.
Appointed by Academy Members
Term of Office: 01/01/23 - 31/12/2026
Lucinda Christian-Lim
Lucinda works as a senior leader in the NHS, and has worked in the field of children’s psychology for the past 15 years and recently trained in Occupational Psychology.
Her expertise lies in providing efficient and effective solutions to persistent challenges and motivating and leading teams to deliver this. As a skilled communicator she has successfully collaborated with stakeholders, from exec up to public engagement to build partnerships and relationships.
She lives and works in Richmond and is committed to ensuring that this is one of the best places in the country to live, learn and flourish. She is keen to use her skills to add value to effective children’s services and is wholly invested in improving outcomes for Children and Young people.
Appointed by Academy Members
Term of Office: 11/09/23 - 10/09/2027
Chris Euden
Awaiting update
Appointed by Academy Members
Term of Office: 01/09/24 - 31/08/2028
Paul Giuffredi
Paul has been an ACA Accredited Finance Director and is now semi-retired. Paul has no previous governance experience, however he has wide finance experience in a number of different industries including e-commerce, retail, business services, fitness & wellness, facilities management and IT development.
Appointed by Academy Members
Term of Office: 01/01/23 - 31/12/2026
Rebecca Gonyora
Rebecca is the Director of Inclusion for Every Child, Every Day Multi Academy Trust (MAT) which is the Trust running a co-located mainstream school (Strathmore School at Grey Court). Her role includes supporting and working in collaboration with Headteachers, Senior Leaders and SENCOs in developing a person-centred approach to inclusion. Rebecca also works as a Deputy Regional SEND Leader (DRSL) for East of England and North East London. She is a NASENCO /NPQSEN tutor and a Module Leader with Middlesex University working in collaboration with Real Training.
Rebecca’s philosophy is centred on the understanding that every teacher is a teacher of SEND and every leader is a leader of SEND. She has more than 15 years’ experience working as a Senior School Leader, Deputy Headteacher, Assistant Headteacher and a SENCO in several inner-city schools.
As part of these multi-faceted roles, she has developed and delivers a five-part course on levels of SEND leadership, supporting SENCOs to progress through a structured hierarchy of competencies in executive leadership skills. At its core, is the empowerment of SENCOs to practice distributive leadership whilst influencing others to prioritise SEND.
She sits on several Local Authority panels, including Workstream 5 and a High Needs’ Funding Group. Recently Rebecca was commissioned to work with the Department for Education as one of their Trust and School Improvement (TSI) officers. This includes supporting schools and Trusts, to drive forward school improvement priorities.
Rebecca enjoys music, is part of a local choir and ,as an English major Rebecca enjoys reading. During summer holidays you will often find her head buried in a book.
Appointed by Academy Members
Term of Office: 01/07/24 - 30/06/2028
Dr Lorna Goodwin
Lorna has a strong educational background, teaching for 12 years before joining St Mary’s University as a teacher educator for over 21 years, during which she completed her doctorate in SEND and Inclusion. As an Academic Director in the School of Education at St Mary’s Lorna established and ran both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, mainly focused upon teacher training; developed SEND teacher training and placement programmes and expanded the outreach, CPD and recruitment activities of the School, including the UK’s inaugural First Star Academy .
Lorna moved to First Star Academies UK as Executive Director in 2018. First Star runs long term university preparation programmes for Looked-after Young People – raising aspirations and supporting transition to higher education and university success.
Appointed by Academy Members
Term of Office: 14/12/18 - 13/12/22, 15/12/22 -14/12/26
Ivan Pryce - CEO & Trustee
Joining Strathmore as Headteacher in 2010, Ivan has spent his educational career in special schools across 5 London boroughs and with the National Autistic Society. It has been a privilege to see Strathmore grow and move into our new campuses. Ivan has always believed in the strength of collaboration with parents, professionals and organisations to improve the outcomes for our pupils. He is an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Educational Assessors and member of the British Educational Leadership, Management and Administration Society. You will often see him pedalling between campuses and to or from different schools and meeting
Harry James (Stepped Down)
Appointed by Foundation/Trust
Term of Office: 01/10/16 - 31/08/24
Jo Merritt (Stepped Down)
Appointed by Academy Members
Term of Office: 20/06/22 - 31/08/24
Adele Kember (Stepped Down)
Appointed by Academy Members
Term of Office: 01/01/23 - 31/08/24
Mike Harlow (Stepped Down)
Appointed by Academy Members
Term of Office: 10/12/20 - 10/10/23
22/23 Summary of Trustee Meeting Attendance
To view the Summary of Trustee Meeting attendance, click the PDF below