Hillary Sheridan

Experience

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  Lainesmead Primary School

  Sept 2007 - Aug 2008

  Class Teacher

  I was a full time teacher at a large, inner city primary school in Swindon, which had a significant number of pupils with specific learning, emotional and behavioural needs. I undertook a range of additional duties, in particular I worked closely with the ICT Co-ordinator to make effective use of a variety of technologies in the classroom to benefit the special needs children’s learning in all curriculum areas. Furthermore I set up and ran an after school tag rugby club for children aged 8-11, and became Music Co-ordinator, a position that was linked closely to the school's creative improvement plan. Show less

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  GEMS Education

  Sept 2008 - Aug 2012

  As a member of the senior leadership team at a school of 900 pupils, 80 teachers and a wider staff of 150, creating policy, evaluating and monitoring standards were integral aspects of my role. These fed into action plans, the school evaluation and the school development plan in which I had significant input. Leadership in our school was judged as outstanding by Dubai Schools Inspection Bureau (DSIB). Having been promoted to Head of ICT I was responsible for managing a budget of over $195,000 with the associated administration for resources that this entails. To ensure the effective use of resources, I put in place an operational research function that provided data to inform where my ICT strategy was performing well and where changes needed to be made. The most recent data showed that games based learning had a very positive impact on children’s writing standards and creative thinking. I have ensured that these findings are appropriately incorporated into the current ICT strategy. In addition to heading the ICT program, I held the positions of School Student Council Teacher Representative, Charity Liaison Officer working with the Varkey GEMS Foundation (VGF), School Website Administrator and GEMS Learning Gateway (GLG) Leader which is an innovative online platform for teachers, parents and pupils. I also taught two days a week. Show less The class of 6-7 year olds under my tutorship had a wide range of abilities, including significant special educational needs. I ensured that all pupils in the class developed socially and progressed academically within the English National Curriculum. This was evidenced by the pupils’ results at the end of the year, including a boy with autism who maintained a rate of progress comparable to that of his peers. During this period I also established the first student school council. The children responded very enthusiastically to the new level of responsibility and I particularly enjoyed supporting them in the undertaking of new projects, such as updating the school uniform. The students and I also set up a blog so that the whole school could be kept informed of their work, this was a first for the school and was received very well by all stakeholders. Show less This role gave me the fantastic opportunity to teach children across the whole primary age range, from 3 years old to those about to enter secondary school. When inspected by Dubai Schools Inspections Bureau (DSIB) my lessons were rated as ‘outstanding’ and I was invited to judge at the Creative Festival and Best of the Best competitions. Beyond my regular duties I actively pursued extra responsibilities and took on the task of School Website Co-ordinator. This included re-designing the website to allow a greater range and clarity of information to be presented, ensuring it was regularly updated and developing how it could be used to benefit both parents’ and prospective parents’ experiences. Show less

  • Information and Communication Technology Network Leader

    Jun 2011 - Aug 2012

  • Head of Information and Communication Technology

    Oct 2009 - Aug 2012

  • Class Teacher

    Sept 2009 - Aug 2010

  • Head of Music

    Sept 2008 - Aug 2009
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  Senator David Coltart

  Jul 2011 - Aug 2011

  Intern for Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture

  As a volunteer intern for Senator David Coltart, I assisted with projects that he was undertaking. During my time I conducted research into educational standards and worked with a local school. As Minister for Sport the Senator was responsible for hosting the African Olympic Hockey Qualifiers. In this regard he asked me to prepare an information booklet for the 350 participants who were competing from seven African nations. In addition to this I successfully completed the following activities: • Research into the reading ages of children who were attending youth centres run by the charity Zimkids. This research has been used by the Ministry of Education, Zimbabwe. • Training the computer teachers of King George V Special Needs School, demonstrating new programs and modelling how they can be used in class, leading to an ongoing training link between the school and myself.• Personally raising a budget of $1,000 from local businesses for the program information booklet. I delivered the completion and dissemination of the booklet within budget and on schedule. • Liaising with sporting, civil, and business institutions throughout Bulawayo, resulting in a number of strong relationships. Show less

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  VERUTH HOLDINGS LIMITED

  Jan 2012 - now

  Responsible for developing strategic direction of the group and analysing potential acquisition and investment opportunities. Work with existing group companies to support their scale-up ambitions and their desire to grow their business. Role ranges from advising on strategy, reviewing budgets, monthly finanancial analysis and being part of a Board whose function is to ask questions.

  • Business Development Director

    Jan 2021 - now

  • Non Executive Director

    Jan 2012 - now
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  British Council

  Jun 2013 - Mar 2016

  Responsibility for the delivery of all English projects undertaken in Rwanda which has involved working with partners, government officials, international consultants, local trainers and within education sector wide task forces. Roles and responsibilities include:-project management, allocating tasks and designing work packages and timelines for projects-proposal writing and proposal budgets-working with external and internal partners-developing business opportunities-risk reporting-financial management and accountability -line management of staff-member of the Senior Leadership Team-representing the British Council at external events, including but not limited to, development partner forums, working groups with Rwanda Education Board and the Ministry of Education, task forces, public events such as Genocide Memorial and Rwanda Reads-website owner www.britishcouncil.rw-social media owner and provide oversight and support to colleagues who manage these sites on a daily basis facebook/BritishCouncilRwanda @rwBritish-Equality Diversity and Inclusion leadMain achievements include:-Supporting Teachers' English through Mentoring (STEM) project on which I was a significant team member awarded Commonwealth Good Practice in Education Award-negotiated and signed licence agreement with national radio station Radio Rwanda to broadcast 4 series and licence with national local language newspaper Imvaho Nshya to print 7 series which over 12 months will reach over 2 million people-launch of UK-Rwanda Alumni network which is funded by the GREAT campaign-providing on the job training and ongoing support to two staff members in being website managers and managers of our social media sites. -presenting at the Association of Teachers of English in Rwanda (ATER) conference-relationship developed with the MasterCard Foundation and Microsoft which have been escalated to the regional level. Relationship with EduMe has lead to a pilot in Tanzania Show less This role was wide ranging and allowed for interaction with a number of externally funded projects, Education projects and the wider work of our Teaching Centre and Exams. The opportunity to interact and support all these strategic business units was a strength of the role and an element which I relished and worked to cultivate. One such example has been collaboration with my Education colleagues to ensure that English websites and offline content are accessible in Digital Hubs across Rwanda.An achievement of which I am particularly proud has been the piloting of a new TeachingEnglish training course, English for Teaching for Beginners (EfTfB). It was necessary to adapt this course to the cultural context of Rwanda and also to consider how best to support the English language teaching delivery of the content. The EfTfB materials were used to support Rwanda Education Board’s (REB) School-based Mentors Programme (SBMP). This programme involves 60 Senior Mentors, 1,000 School-based Mentors and over 29,000 teachers. As such it is a high impact project that works closely with a number of key development partners, including government officials. To deliver as part of the SBMP requires collaboration with a range of actors in the Rwandan education field, such as USAid and their L3 programme, JICA, PeaceCorp and FHI360 to name but a few. Show less As English Language Projects Manager I was responsible for the effective delivery of British Council projects. One of the projects which I was asked to lead was an externally funded project in partnership with PAFP – the Belgium Common Programme and the Rwandan Workforce Development Authority (WDA). This involved face to face meetings and regular e-mail contact to ensure that our development partners were informed and in agreement with actions taken. Monitoring and evaluation field visits, which I organised and participated in, allowed us to analyse the activities that we are undertaking. My duties included writing a report and sharing this with our partners which subsequently provided me with the opportunity to design a course of action, based on lessons learnt, that included material development. Being part of the School Based Mentors Technical Working Group and the Know Zone Technical Advisory Group enabled me to gain technical-level contacts and engage in dialogue with a range of organisations working within education in Rwanda. This included the Rwandan Education Board, EDC, IEE and FHI360 among others. In these contexts I was able to contribute to the discussion due to my education technical skills and experience. Show less

  • English Programmes Manager

    Apr 2015 - Mar 2016

  • English Projects and Business Manager

    Oct 2013 - Apr 2015

  • English Language Projects Manager

    Jun 2013 - Sept 2013
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  British Council

  Jun 2016 - Dec 2020

  • Regional Business Support, South Asia

    Jun 2020 - Dec 2020

  • Head of Programmes, Iran

    May 2016 - Jun 2020

  • Acting Country Director, Iran

    Jun 2016 - Oct 2016
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  Europa plc

  Jan 2023 - now

  Non Executive Director