Trustees

Simon Ashby, Chair

Originally from a finance background, Simon is an experienced executive with several years of international experience in a large corporate environment. As chair of Reading Quest’s Board of Trustees, he is working with the management and other trustees to enable Reading Quest to fulfil its potential and reach as many children as possible. Having watched his own children grow up and learn to love reading, Simon is proud to be associated with an organisation that can have such a profound effect on a child’s life.

Pat Norman

Pat has spent most of her working life in education; mainly in Higher Education but latterly in secondary school education. She has become increasingly aware of the crucial part literacy plays in a person’s life chances. For a child to access a secondary school curriculum he or she must be able to read by the age of 6 years, so every effort has to be made to ensure every child can do this.

Joe Carter

Joe has worked as a tutor, co-ordinator and manager in Adult and Further Education since the early 80s. His principal area of interest has been in adult basic skills – literacy, language and numeracy. In London and, since 2001, in Oxfordshire, he has been engaged in the development of these key skills with local communities. In his current role for Oxfordshire County Council Adult Learning, he manages the Skills for Life (Literacy, Numeracy, ESOL), Family Learning and Learning Disability programmes. This incorporates responsibilities for budgetary and quality management, both areas of direct relevance to Reading Quest.

As a trustee for Reading Quest his focus is around the skills support provided for parents/carers, particularly those from disadvantaged communities. Having worked with Reading Quest in the past, he is very aware of the opportunities opened up for parents by the programme.

Emily Curtis

Emily has a decade of experience as a journalist and producer in BBC news and current affairs. More recently, she has helped a number of local organisations with marketing and PR strategies. Emily became a volunteer Reading Quest tutor in 2008 because she understood the importance of basic literacy in ensuring that children can make the most of their talents and their opportunities. As a tutor, Emily has seen children both achieve huge advances in reading and writing, and also blossom into more engaged and self-confident individuals.

Councillor Van Coulter

Van was educated as a political economist at Ruskin College, Oxford. He currently serves as a City Councillor for Barton and Sandhills ward in Oxford. Van is a humanist who seeks to support actions that uphold mainstream inclusion and address inequalities. Van believes that every person counts and calls for the provision of opportunities throughout childhood and adult life to allow for development of the potential within each one of us. Van reads widely, including academic research about early years education. His hobbies include the study of sustainable economic development, mitigation of climate change and international relations.

Gillian Standing

Gillian has been the headteacher of St Francis CE Primary School in Cowley for nearly 5 years. She qualified as a teacher locally, completing her PGCE at Oxford Brookes, and has taught at schools in the south of county before moving to the city. This includes a spell as Special Needs Co-ordinator in a school in Abingdon.

St Francis has a long history of involvement with Reading Quest. Many children have benefited significantly from the additional reading support and in particular the boost to their confidence enabling them to see themselves for the first time as readers. Gillian brings the educational perspective to the trustee board and a passion for promoting reading development throughout the primary age range, both at home and at school.

Christine Plews

Christine Plews is a partner at Blake Lapthorn law firm and leads the Family team in Oxford. She specialises in financial matters and cases involving business assets and trusts. Christine has helped launch collaborative law in the Oxford region and remains involved in the development of this area through being a trustee of Oxford Family Mediation. Christine’s charitable work also extends to being the local area representative for CAFOD (including Fairtrade initiatives).

A francophile, Christine spends a lot of time at her house in the south-west of France. She is an avid reader, book collector and a member of a local book group. She is interested in how children learn to read and the difficulties that some children have when faced with this challenge.

Tony Hobbs, Financial Advisor

Tony is an accountant with experience in many sectors, having qualified in 1992. In 1986, Tony joined Chapman, Robionson and Moore accountants in Oxford and is today the Managing Director. As the Managing Director, he has an overview of all activities at CRM, but has a particular interest in business development. This has evolved through a combination of working closely with clients on the financial management of their business, and background studying and courses. Tony acts as the Financial Director for a number of clients, helping them to ‘make the numbers work’ in their business.

Sue Hutter

Sue Hutter works for the A1 Group Ltd, who are qualified and experienced in all areas of bookkeeping and payroll. She previously worked in the banking profession until re-training as a bookkeeper in 2008. She enjoys all sports and still plays hockey and is chairman of her local team. She is an avid reader and, having seen her own daughter struggle to overcome her own reading difficulties, is happy to be able to help the charity by looking after their day to day bookkeeping and payroll activities.

Consultants

Penny Tyack, Founder and consultant

As a primary school teacher Penny was inspired by children’s energy and drive to learn, but she was frustrated by seeing children who just hadn’t managed to learn to read. Reading Quest grew out of research she did for her MA at Oxford Brookes. It took shape on a rough estate where school failure spelt trouble. Seeing children succumb to the magic of books and stories is a constant thrill even after 15 years, and working with adults who share this passion is awe-inspiring.

Mandy King, Literacy Consultant

Mandy has over twenty years experience in primary education as a teacher and senior manager in Buckinghamshire primary schools, a literacy consultant with Oxfordshire LA and as an independent consultant for literacy and learning. She was awarded a MA in Education (Language and Literacy) with distinction in 2004 and Accreditation as a Local Consultant for improvement in Primary Support for writing in 2010. Passionate about improving the life chances of all children through the effective learning and teaching of literacy, she believes in the importance of engaging children in the exploration of high quality texts and developing all four aspects of literacy together to establish a strong foundation of skills, knowledge and understanding from which children can grow and flourish.

Mandy also runs her own literacy consultancy company called Amanda King Education Support Ltd and you can contact her on amanda@amkeducation.co.uk