Our Team

Name: Octavo Partnership
Address: 4th Floor, Croydon Clocktower Katharine Street, Croydon, CR9 1ET
Telephone: 0208 241 5460

Our team is made up of highly experienced, passionate individuals who believe in working together to help schools and educational establishments be more effective and ultimately improve outcomes for children and young people.

Home
|
Team Members

Education Partnership

Learn More
Christine Lonsdale

Education Partnership Manager
Christine Lonsdale
Drawing on a background predominantly in the public sector, Christine is Octavo’s Teacher Recruitment Consultant. Christine looks after the Teacher Recruitment Strategy for Croydon which includes the NQT Primary pool, the NQT CPD programme, new Headteacher induction programmes and teacher recruitment events. Christine enjoys working collaboratively on these and other projects and has worked in partnership with 5 other local authorities to develop leadership programmes for middle and senior leaders. Christine’s understanding of schools and academies is augmented by 16 years’ experience working in the HR&OD schools’ department and the School Improvement team for London Borough of Croydon.

Employee Services

Learn More
Vicki Langston
Vicki Langston
Vicki has been dealing with Teachers' Pensions for 33 years at Croydon Council and has a wealth of experience and historical knowledge of all the changes. Vicki loves dogs and gardening.

Education Business Support Service

Learn More
Tamsin Mills

Education Business Services Manager
Tamsin Mills
Tamsin joined Octavo in January 2017 as Account Manager. Tamsin is a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute and the Chartered Insurance Institute. She was a Governor at Hayes secondary school (Bromley) for 8 years. Tamsin has over 25 years account management experience within financial services, including account management for Film/ TV companies, pre-schools and nurseries, insurance companies, international insurance education colleges. In recent years Tamsin has specialised in learning and development including teaching and qualification benchmarking. She established a CPD accreditation which became the 'gold' standard for insurance and financial services training.
Email: tamsin.mills@croydon.gov.uk
Corinne Emby

Education Senior Business Support Officer
Learn More
Diane Anthony

Education Senior Business Support Officer
Diane Anthony
Di joined Croydon in the early 1990s and during this time she has provided Business Support to Governor Services, Access To Education, and School Exclusions. More recently Di leads the Business Support to Children Missing from Education
Learn More
Esther Charles

Education Business Support Officer
Esther Charles
Esther has worked in education for over five years and enjoys volunteering for community work in her local area.
Learn More
Gerald Skeene

Education Senior Business Support Officer
Gerald Skeene
Gerry joined Croydon in 2015 and has supported many services within Children's Social Care and Education. Gerry has over 15 years of experience in the music publishing industry. Gerry enjoys making music, sightseeing, travelling and spending time with his family.
Learn More
Heather Beck

Education Business Support Officer
Heather Beck
Heather has worked in various areas in Croydon since 2000 and enjoys running.
Learn More
Jenny Patterson

Education Senior Business Support Officer
Jenny Patterson
Jenny has worked for Croydon for 15 years and has enjoyed the variety of supporting MASH, UMT, YOS and Education.
John Naylor

Education Business Support Officer
Learn More
Laura Borg

Education Business Support Officer
Laura Borg
Laura has worked at the Council for the Education Welfare Department since 2002, although her business support role has changed many times within that team.
Mori Bates

Education Senior Business Support Officer
Natasha Scialpi

Education Senior Business Support Officer
Learn More
Paulette Simpson

Child Entertainment and Employment Officer
Paulette Simpson
Paulette has been employed by the Council since 2011 and has worked in Education Services throughout the years firstly as a Senior Business Support Officer and currently as Child Employment & Entertainment Officer.
Shanita Aktar

Education Senior Business Support Officer

School Improvement Service

Learn More
Jessica Henk

Education Development Strategic Lead - Secondary
Jessica Henk
Jess is an experienced mainstream Secondary School Senior Leader with nine years experience in school improvement as a Vice Principal at Ebbsfleet Academy, Kent and four years as an Assistant Principal in Hackney prior to this. Jess joined the teaching profession as a Teach First History teacher in 2004. As Vice Principal at Ebbsfleet, leading Learning and Teaching and CPD, Jess helped transform the quality of education to secure good outcomes.
Miriam Ananne-Sechere

Education Development Strategic Lead - Secondary and Post 16 Education Adviser
Learn More
Joanne Wallin

School Improvement and Development Adviser/Maths Adviser/Moderation Manager
Joanne Wallin
Joanne is one of our Primary School link advisers, providing school improvement support to schools. She is also our mathematics adviser. Joanne trained as a teacher at St. Mary’s College, Strawberry Hill and has over twenty years’ classroom experience in EYFS, KS1 and KS2. She was subject leader for mathematics and Assistant Headteacher at Parish Church Infant School. Her training experience includes being a Numicon affiliate trainer from 2011 to 2018 and a visiting lecturer to Roehampton University, teaching on the initial teacher education course, from 2014-2016. She now works closely with the London Thames Maths Hub to support CPD opportunities for local schools and delivers their Specialist Knowledge Teaching Mathematics for Early Years programme. Joanne is part of the assessment team, working as a lead moderator and moderation manager.
Learn More
Joyce Lydford

School Improvement and Development Adviser
Joyce Lydford
Joyce Lydford is a School Improvement Advisor and Link Advisor to a number of primary schools. Her advice is grounded in recent practical classroom and leadership experience in a large primary school and informed by her current inspection work. She has experience in leadership in primary schools and as a Local Authority Mathematics consultant. She is also an experienced KS1 and KS2 moderator. Joyce’s areas of expertise are in primary education with a particular specialism in mathematics, teaching and learning, leadership, understanding of data and the education of the most able children, in which she offers courses and bespoke consultancy to schools both in and beyond Croydon. Joyce is able to support you in reviewing your current provision and providing practical support to improve outcomes.
Rachel Fox

School Improvement and Development Adviser/English Adviser/ Moderation Manager
Zoe Barkhammanlow

Education Adviser Health & Wellbeing
Elizabeth Spendlove

Education Adviser Health & Wellbeing
Ashana Graham

Education Improvement Adviser- Alternative Provision
Claire Harrison

Education Improvement Advisor- SEN
Penny Smith-Orr

SACRE Consultant

Educational Psychology

Anne Moore MBE

Chief Educational Psychologist
Karina Ng

Senior Educational Psychologist
Nicola Tallis

Senior Educational Psychologist
Learn More
Louise Knight

Educational Psychology Coordinator
Louise Knight
Louise has worked for the Local Authority in the education area for many years and therefore brought a wealth of business support knowledge to the team. Having initially started as business support officer under the National Strategies project, she went on to work in many education areas including being the business support for heads of primary and secondary education, in Croydon, a senior finance administrator and business support officer for school improvement. Prior to local authority Louise worked for many years in the City of London for high profile blue chip companies as a PA.
Cheneiss Bonitto

Educational Psychologist
Hannah Harvest

Educational Psychologist
Jill Lawton

Educational Psychologist
Jo Blanchard

Trainee Educational Psychologist
Juliette Daniel

Educational Psychologist
Katie Ellis

Educational Psychologist
Lara Milletti

Educational Psychologist
Magdalena Fernández

Educational Psychologist
Naomi Milliken

Trainee Educational Psychologist
Rachael Di Lallo

Educational Psychologist
Rachel Pereira da Silva

Trainee Educational Psychologist
Susan Moore

Educational Psychologist
Michael Modeste

Trainee Educational Psychologist

Finance Services

Alison Bugeja

Education Senior Business Support Officer

Governor Services

Learn More
Sonia Malik

Education Governance Strategic Lead
Sonia Malik
Sonia is a highly skilled professional, with over ten years’ of experience of working in London’s financial sector. This enables her to work effectively to deadlines and deliver a high quality service at all times for our customers, using innovative and creative approaches to deliver impactful results. Sonia is an experienced Chair of Governors, and fully understands the increasing responsibilities and expectations placed on the shoulders of governing bodies in the current dynamic educational landscape. Sonia is an articulate and experienced trainer and leads on the academy and school governance training and development programme, ensuring that both the termly training programme, and the bespoke training sessions, are tailored to meet the constantly evolving needs and requirements of governing bodies / board of trustees. Her finance experience, as well as her governance work, has enhanced the finance training that Governor Services is able to offer, ensuring it is tailored to effectively meet the practical needs of those who sit on finance committees and may not have a finance background. She also delivers courses on behalf of the National College for Teaching and Learning.
Email: octavo.governance@croydon.gov.uk
Manvinder Saberwal-Law

Education Governance Clerk Team Lead
Sonia Wesley

Education Governance Training Host
Mori Bates

Education Senior Business Support Officer

Human Resources

Learn More
Fiona Evans

Schools HR Lead
Fiona Evans
Fiona has been a Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development since 2000. Prior to joining Octavo, she has worked in a number of HR advisory roles in a variety of sectors including transport, IT, telecoms and HR consultancy. She has extensive experience of successfully resolving complex employee relations matters, of leading and supporting restructuring programmes, TUPE transfers and union consultations. She also has also managed employee benefit programmes as well as recruitment and selection campaigns. Her previous role as an HR Advisor involved supporting many change initiatives including the company’s transition from a public company to a private organisation. Fiona’s role at Octavo is to support schools on all HR matters including employee relations casework and restructuring programmes. She aims to bring her extensive knowledge from the private sector to achieve successful outcomes to the schools she supports.
Learn More
Gordon Mackenzie

Schools HR Lead
Gordon Mackenzie
Gordon is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and has worked as an HR generalist in Croydon Council since 1990. Prior to joining Croydon, he worked for Merton Council, West Glamorgan County Council and within the private sector. In 1997 he joined the Education Personnel team and acquired an expert knowledge of school employees’ terms and conditions. In 2005 Gordon was seconded into the project team charged with implementing a HR & Payroll software platform that was used for schools. He remained with that team until 2007 when he returned to the HR Consultancy Team. Now working within Education Services, his experience of the history and evolution of the terms and conditions of employment within Croydon’s schools help him resolve a number of interesting employment issues with his customers. During his recent employment he has also worked with schools in Surrey, Sutton, Merton and Bromley. He is an alumnus of Liverpool and Durham universities and outside of work, a member and avid supporter of the British Museum and the Natural History Museum (and as an added extra, quite the authority on pre-historic animals!)
Clare Harding

Education HR

Information Systems

Nick Lee

Senior IT Technician
Greg Szostak

Senior IT Consultant
Learn More
Kennedy Bhagwan

Senior IT Consultant
Kennedy Bhagwan
With a BSc Degree in Computing, Kennedy has worked with various local authorities in supporting SIMS and other MIS applications for over twelve years. Having worked with the Royal Borough of Greenwich for almost ten years, he joined Octavo Partnership in June 2015. Currently Kennedy is working as a Senior MIS Consultant, managing the SIMS helpdesk for SIMS support, as well as delivering a wide range of SIMS training course. He has gained vast amount of experience over the years, not just in MIS but in IT as a whole. Kennedy has a comprehensive understanding of how schools operate, as well as their statutory obligations to the Dfe, local authorities and other organisations. Part of his role involves ensuring schools are able to user SIMS effectively and to help drive the decision and improvement making process for better outcomes for pupils. Originally from Grenada in the Caribbean, Kennedy has brought to Octavo and Croydon schools a wealth of experience and knowledge in IT, with exceptional customer care and service delivery.
Paul Smith

Assistant IT Consultant
Ciaryn Morrow

ICT Technician

About Us

Our work

Services

Training

About Us

Our work

Services

Training

Our Team

Our team is made up of highly experienced, passionate individuals who believe in working together to help schools and educational establishments be more effective and ultimately improve outcomes for children and young people.

Education Partnership

Christine Lonsdale

Employee Services

Vicki Langston

Education Business Support Service

Tamsin Mills

Corinne Emby

Diane Anthony

Esther Charles

Gerald Skeene

Heather Beck

Jenny Patterson

John Naylor

Laura Borg

Mori Bates

Natasha Scialpi

Paulette Simpson

Shanita Aktar

School Improvement Service

Jessica Henk

Miriam Ananne-Sechere

Joanne Wallin

Joyce Lydford

Rachel Fox

Zoe Barkhammanlow

Elizabeth Spendlove

Ashana Graham

Claire Harrison

Penny Smith-Orr

Educational Psychology

Anne Moore MBE

Karina Ng

Nicola Tallis

Louise Knight

Cheneiss Bonitto

Hannah Harvest

Jill Lawton

Jo Blanchard

Juliette Daniel

Katie Ellis

Lara Milletti

Magdalena Fernández

Naomi Milliken

Rachael Di Lallo

Rachel Pereira da Silva

Susan Moore

Michael Modeste

Finance Services

Alison Bugeja

Governor Services

Sonia Malik

Manvinder Saberwal-Law

Sonia Wesley

Mori Bates

Human Resources

Fiona Evans

Gordon Mackenzie

Clare Harding

Information Systems

Nick Lee

Greg Szostak

Kennedy Bhagwan

Paul Smith

Ciaryn Morrow