students picking up food to add to their plates

Governance

The college is a registered company limited by guarantee operating within the Dukes Education Group Ltd and is governed by a Board of Directors.  

The Board of Directors is assisted by a professional support team and appointed Senior Advisors to review all aspects of college performance and monitoring. This includes safeguarding, fees, staffing, budgets, health and safety, property, admissions and marketing, compliance, inspections, training and development, legal matters, complaints, surveys, and other local college issues.

The Governing Body meets termly to consider reports from the Principal covering all college matters.

The Board appoint the Principal and all other members of the SLT.  The Board, via the Dukes’ Managing Colleges, retains ultimate responsibility for the approval of all policies and developments. They also review regularly their impact on college finances and operations. All operational matters are delegated to the Principal and SMT who are responsible for fulfilling the college’s aims and the successful implementation of the college’s strategic development plan. 

To download information about the governors please click on the roles below:

Chairman

Aatif Hassan founded Dukes Education in 2015. He is also Chairman of Cavendish Education, a group of 11 schools for pupils with dyslexia and autism and a trustee of St James Independent Schools. Aatif is also on the board of CReSTeD.

Aatif has a first-class degree in Mathematics and Economics and also had a British Army commission. In 2020, he was awarded the Freedom of City of London for services to education.

Managing Director (Colleges) (Safeguarding Governor)

Tim Fish founded Earlscliffe, now a Dukes college, in 2012, with his wife Julie. With 30 years’ experience in teaching and leading in well-known international schools in England, Tim is committed to providing an arena of academic stimulus, intellectual rigour, cultural enrichment, vigorous internationalism and, ultimately, personal success, in which students perform to their very best abilities.

After undergraduate studies in the USA and England, Tim started his career in international boarding schools in 1990 at St Clare’s, Oxford, gaining invaluable experience in the International Baccalaureate and in running wide-ranging summer courses. At 32 Tim became Head teacher at Buckswood, where he remained for over 12 years seeing the school grow from 67 students to 420, with a buoyant sixth form offering a choice of university pathways which included A-level, Foundation and IB, and the establishment of a thriving football academy inspired by Nick Bollettieri’s tennis school in Bradenton, Florida. Tim oversaw a number of successful Ofsted inspections during this period and was involved in overseas projects in Nigeria and Georgia.

Tim established Sussex Summer Schools in 2001, which became a multi-centre provider of residential, junior summer programmes in the south-east for international students from over forty countries. Tim’s product development skills have been put to good use in this area, with the Mini-MBA™ for older teenagers proving itself year after year to be a highly-regarded and innovative course.

Tim is still involved in delivering A-level Politics workshops and university counselling. Tim enjoys maintaining successful working relationships with many highly-valued international partners, having embraced fully the concept of being ‘outward-facing’ across a school’s activities. Earlscliffe is a UNESCO Associated Schools Project member and has won a number of Erasmus grants in recent years for its lead role in student-centred projects with schools in France, Germany, Hungary and The Netherlands.

In 2019, Tim became Managing Director at Dukes, responsible for our boarding schools. In this role, he guides collaboration, best practice, and performance at Key Stage 5 across the whole family.

Chief Financial Officer

Rob Humphreys is the Financial Director for the Dukes Colleges.

Compliance Director

Paul Ludlow is the Compliance Director for the Dukes Colleges

Senior Advisor & Governor

Niel Roskilly