Leadership Team

Lisa Fathers

Deputy Chief Executive Officer

Lisa is the Deputy Chief Executive Officer at Bright Futures Educational Trust. She has had over 20 years’ experience in education, both as a teacher and in a variety of senior leadership positions including Associate Headteacher and Co-Principal.

Lisa is now an executive leader, serving on the Executive Leadership Team for Bright Futures. She also provides strategic leadership for the Bright Futures Professional Development Institute, which includes our two Teaching School Hubs, a Maths Hub, a SCITT (School-Centred Initial Teacher Training), SEND Outreach, NW Early Years Stronger Practice Hub and Bright Futures Training which provides school and teacher development across the region. Lisa co-leads school improvement work for the Trust as well as leading Marketing & Communications.

Her particular areas of expertise and passion are change leadership, coaching theory and practice, wellbeing and partnership working. Lisa has coached and supported leaders at all levels and leads on partnership working for the Trust, working alongside organisations such as Teach First, Ambition Institute, the Youth Sport Trust, the Chartered College, and Mental Health First Aid England. She represents Education on the Greater Manchester Reform Board and the executive level Strategic Health and Wellbeing Board and has many Governance roles such as Co-Chair for Greater Manchester’s Mental Health in Education Board and the Chair for the national Well Schools Board. Lisa is also part of the national training team for Mental Health First Aid England. She was instrumental in the highly successful and ground-breaking Greater Manchester Mentally Healthy Schools Programme. Lisa is proud to be a Fellow at the Chartered College of Teaching and a Professional Associate at Leeds Beckett University Centre for Race & Decoloniality. Lisa is a champion of collaboration and whole system working across Greater Manchester, the wider North-West region and nationally.

Jayne Carmichael

Director of Bright Futures Professional Development Institute

Jayne is the Director of the Professional Development Institute at Bright Futures. Jayne’s teaching and leadership experience spans a 25-year career within the education sector across a variety of roles and responsibilities. 

She has over 20 years of teaching experience within the primary sector having held school-based senior leadership posts as well as a trust-level executive leadership post. Her areas of expertise lie within teaching and learning, Continuous Professional Development (CPD), Initial Teacher Training (ITT), assessment and Early Years.

During her time as a Senior Leader, in a previous trust, Jayne led the school’s application to become a cohort 1 Teaching School. Assuming the role of Teaching School Lead, Jayne expanded the outreach work of the Teaching School where she fulfilled the roles of a Specialist Lead Education (SLE), ITT/School Direct Lead, National Professional Qualification (NPQ) facilitator and CPD programme delivery lead. Jayne created and developed the school’s School Direct programme where she was accountable for recruitment and marketing, development of programme content/school-based training sessions and trainee placements. She took on the role of the lead school in visits to placement schools (lesson observations and mentor support) as well as managing relationships with Higher Education Institution (HEI) providers.

Eleanor Davidson

Deputy Director of Teaching School Hub (AB/ITT)

Eleanor Davidson is a Deputy Director of Teaching School Hub; she holds strategic policy oversight for the Appropraite Body (AB) and Initial Teacher Training (ITT) as well as continuing to hold the position of School-Centred Initial Teacher Training (SCITT) Director.

Eleanor has a breadth of teaching and leadership experience spanning a 20-year career within the education sector across a variety of age phases, schools, and institutions. She also has over 14 years of teaching experience within the secondary sector and more than six years of leadership experience within ITT.

Eleanor has held a number of positions including Assistant Vice Principal and Assistant Headteacher. She has a wide range of leadership experience in recruiting, training, and supporting trainee teachers and Early Career Teachers (ECTs), both within Edge Hill University and the SCITT. Eleanor has taken a lead on quality assurance across the vast and diverse ITT and ECTs partnership for many years, she was also part of the ECF early roll out across Greater Manchester.

At Edge Hill University Eleanor held the position of Assistant Head of Department (School-Based Training) within the primary sector and before this role she was the Director of the Future Teachers Programme; a programme designed to support Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs).

Eleanor’s research interest is very much linked to the impact and effectiveness of the Pupil Premium funding. Schools in challenging circumstances quickly became Eleanor’s research focus and the use of Pupil Premium and the ‘closing the gap’ agenda became the emphasis of her Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education (PG CERT HE) for which she was awarded a Distinction. Eleanor is also an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Rachel Redmond

Commercial Manager

Rachel has worked within education for over 15 years, predominately working with groups of schools across the country.  Rachel has recently moved from the children’s Charity, The Youth Sport Trust where she was National Development Manager working with managers across the country to improve educational outcomes for children and young people through PE, School Sport and Physical Activity.

As the Commercial Manager at Bright Futures, Rachel plays a role in identifying, cultivating and securing new business, as well as managing existing work streams.  Rachel’s role is to lead the business and commercial services of the Teaching School Hubs, the Alliance for Learning and outward facing services.