Our Sponsor and Donors

Annabel Nicoll and her father, Sir Martyn Arbib have been the mainstay of the Trust with their involvement spanning over 15 years. Both have been instrumental in how the Trust is today, providing both the original vision and financial backing to ensure the Trust’s aspirations are realised. The Arbib family bring a wealth of experience to the Trust through their strong investment background and involvement in creating inspirational educational spaces to enrich learning for children of all ages (Henley Rowing and Museum Learning). Annabel’s vision, inspired by schools in New York, led to the development of our ‘Museum Learning’ schools, here in Langley, the first Museum school in the UK.

Annabel is passionate about giving our children within the Trust experiences beyond a traditional education, by enriching the curriculum through cultural experiences and through external museum and business experts. Annabel’s vision is to ensure our children have a fully well-rounded holistic education experiencing life beyond the school environment and Langley.

Historically we have been richly supported by Annabel and Martyn, examples of this include contributions to our school buildings to create the best possible learning spaces, donations of fabulous artefacts to enhance learning, funding for the in-house museum learning team, staff well-being programmes to ensure our staff feel valued and rewarded and the development of an IT infrastructure to take us well into the 21st century, to name a few.

Annabel’s ongoing passion for supporting and engaging with our community runs deeper than generous funding, Annabel is often seen in and around our schools contributing where she feels she can add the most value. As a Trustee and a Governor at each of the schools and through her wide network of contacts she provides opportunities that wouldn’t exist without her.

Paul has a Chartered Accountancy background with over 25 years of experience across a range of sectors. During this time, Paul has held a number of senior financial positions, CFO of GVC Holdings PLC, Europe’s largest sports betting and gaming company, CFO of Ladbrokes Coral in addition to holding a number of non-executive roles. Currently, Paul is Chairman of two portfolio companies at Alchemy along with his role as a senior adviser.

Paul has a degree in Classics from the University of Cambridge which fueled his keen interest in literacy. Subsequently, one of Paul’s many passions is to help improve children’s literacy at an early age so that they are confident at every stage of their life. As the National Literacy Trust states:

‘Literacy is the ability to read, write, speak and listen in a way that lets us communicate effectively and make sense of the world… Lacking vital literacy skills holds a person back at every stage of their life. As a child they won't be able to succeed at school, as a young adult they will be locked out of the job market, and as a parent they won't be able to support their own child's learning. This intergenerational cycle makes social mobility and a fairer society more difficult’

Paul therefore helps to fund our literacy programme across the Trust so that our children are competent readers, writers and speakers and are well prepared for life beyond school. Our literacy programme is introduced to all of our new students during the summer transition camp (primary to secondary), a camp which Paul also supports.

Andy is a co-founder of Veritas Asset Management, a London based asset manager where he heads up the Global Equity team. He is married to Meg and they have two daughters. 

Andy’s philanthropic aims revolve around helping young people to have the opportunity to succeed regardless of their starting point.  With Arbib his mission is to do all that he can to lessen the impact of mental health on the pupils throughout our three schools. 

Latest figures show that one in six children aged five to 16 have a mental health problem, a huge increase from one in nine in 2017 and statutory provision is struggling to keep up with this demand.

• 50% of those with lifetime mental health problems first experienced symptoms by the age of 14
• 1 in 10 boys aged 5-19 with a mental health condition are excluded in some form from school
• 83% of young people with mental health needs agreed that the coronavirus pandemic had made their mental health worse
• In a YoungMinds commissioned survey by Censuswide, two-thirds (67%) of young people said they would prefer to be able to access mental health support without going to see their GP but half (53%) said they didn't know how else to access this help.

Andy’s funding supports a very specific Trust Strategic Objective, our Place2be provision in support of our mental health strategy. This has enabled us to provide a ‘Place2be’ room in each school, Mental Health training to our staff, allowing us to have Mental Health practitioners in each school and funding for our Place2Be counsellors which totals 14 days a week across the 3 schools. This funding has had a significant impact, particularly given the recent context of Covid.

In addition, Andy sponsors a scholarship programme, providing scholarships to specific deserving school-leavers that are heading into further education.

Andy has held a number of extremely influential positions across a wide range of sectors (restaurant, finance, consumer goods and retail). Andy started his career with the prestigious Boston Consulting Group giving him exposure to a number of best practice industries. This depth of knowledge along with his experience has made him a great asset to the businesses he has run in his roles as Group Chief Executive, COO and Managing Director. Currently Andy is the CEO and sits on the board of The Restaurant Group.

Education was a big part of Andy’s background, Andy studied English Literature at St Peter’s College, Oxford and Business at the Harvard Business School. Helping children transition from primary to secondary school and giving our children a real desire to learn is Andy’s core reason for supporting our transition camps within our Trust. We know that moving from a small nurturing primary school to a bigger secondary school can be a huge transition and can sometimes lead to children struggling to find their way. Andy’s funding supports our summer camp to ensure our children smoothly transition and feel supported at the start, during and the end of their journey within the Trust.

Carl has an extensive, successful and varied career in the private sector, bringing a wealth of experience having undertaken Chairman, Chief Executive and other leadership roles in blue chip companies in the retail, technology and leisure sectors. Tara had a successful career in banking before giving up work to raise their children. She now chairs the Board of Governors at a private girls' preparatory school in High Wycombe.

Carl & Tara have a particular interest in helping to remove barriers to student achievement, particularly for those with a less advantaged start in life. They understand that the gap in attainment can widen as the child grows older unless some very specific interventions take place. Utilising the Education Endowment Fund (EEF) toolkit, we are working to ensure that students have access to the highest levels of support and understanding, to develop self-belief, confidence and aspirations.

Carl’s & Tara’s funding has paid for summer camps, our family liaison officer, the additional 6th form tutoring, professional tutoring and the excellent Yes Futures programme which works with our most able disadvantaged students in each year group. In addition, they fund our ‘Talk the Talk’ programme, which supports the development of oracy across the school. They recognise that confidence with the spoken word can have a significant impact on overall literacy and on future personal and professional success and happiness. The overall aim of this initiative is to improve our pupils’ levels of confidence, independence and the ability to articulate themselves confidently in all environments. Research shows this programme delivers clear tangible outcomes in helping to develop a child’s confidence in speaking.

Carl & Tara along with our sponsor and all of our donors make a real difference to our young people, giving them a better start in life.