Northumberland Church of England Academy Trust is a registered charity and a company limited by guarantee.

The structure is made up of Members, Trustees and Governors.

NCEAT-Governance-Structure-Diagram-2024-25-v2 Download

School governors and trustees have three core functions…

Ensuring clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction.
Holding executive leaders to account for the educational performance of the organisation and its pupils, and the performance management of staff.
Overseeing the financial performance of the organisation and making sure its money is well spent.

Governance at NCEA Trust

There are local governing bodies for each of the Trust schools. The terms of reference for the local governing bodies are held within the Scheme of Delegation and can be downloaded below.

Key Documents

Our Members, Trustees and Committee

Click the tabs below to find out who our Members, Trustees and Committee members are.

Alison Alden (in attendance)Chief Finance Officer

Jeff Hope	Chair of FORC
John Brearley
John Marshall
Fiona Nash
Rachel Scheffer
Alan Hardie (in attendance)	CEO/Accounting Officer

Alan Hardie (in attendance)CEO/Accounting OfficerAlison Alden (in attendance) Chief Finance Officer

Alex Cox	Chair
Ellie Gadsby
Tony Hodson
John Marshall
Stephen Purvis	Associate appointed by Trustees

To ensure accountability and monitoring processes are rigorous across the Trust, a committee was formed in September 2022 to oversee education quality and standards. The committee meets four times a year. On occasion, other parties may be asked to attend, such as a member of the Diocesan Joint Education Team.

Rachel Mays	Trustee (Chair)
Richard Bishopp	Trustee
Simon Ross	Trustee
Alan Hardie (in attendance)	Trustee and CEO

The local governing bodies (LGB) are accountable for their decisions to the Trust Board. Following the demerger of Bishop’s Primary School into five individual schools in July 2021, an additional LGB was created in September to serve the devolved schools. Warkworth C of E Primary School joined NCEA Trust in September 2020. For information on each LGB, please go to each school’s website: