The members of the Board have many years of experience in building financially strong businesses in the care and education sectors.

Ros Marshall - CEO
Ros was appointed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of kidsunlimited in February 2010. Ros has extensive experience in multi-site education services. From 1998 she was Managing Director of Sodexo’s Education business, providing support services to over 1,000 schools, colleges and universities across Great Britain. Following a successful 25 year career with this global company, Ros moved to the education company Nord Anglia, initially as Director of the Learning Services Division, where she was responsible for the award of significant education improvement and inspection contracts with Ofsted, the Ministry of Defence and the Quality Improvement Agency. In 2006 Ros was appointed to the board of Nord Anglia as the Chief Operating Officer. Ros is a Trustee and Deputy Chair of The National Children’s Orchestra of Great Britain and a Patron of the Cheltenham Festivals of Music Literature and Science.

Jeremy Clark – Development Director
Jeremy joined kidsunlimited in January 2002. He is a Chartered Surveyor with 16 years’ post qualification experience mainly in property development and property management sectors. Prior to joining kidsunlimited Jeremy specialised in development roles for pub and hotel operators and successfully grew brands at Fuller, Smith and Turner such as “The Fine Line”, “Ale and Pie” and “Fullers Hotels” in London and the Home Counties. Jeremy has managed over 35 new nursery openings and acquisitions over the last ten years at kidsunlimited.

Caroline Wright – Head of Early Years
Caroline joined kidsunlimited on 1st June 2011 to lead the Early Years team for the company and is a member of the company’s Senior Management team, reporting to Ros Marshall. Caroline has a wealth of experience in Early Years Childcare and Education and most recently has worked for Cambridgeshire County Council as Early Years Foundation Stage Manager providing strategic leadership to both Early Years Foundation Stage and Childcare and Play Work Advisors. She was previously an Early Years Childcare Inspector for Ofsted. Caroline’s qualifications include the Advanced Diploma in Education (Early Years) a Bachelor of Philosophy in Early Years Education (Higher Level Degree) and Early Years Professional Status. She is also a qualified Further and Adult Education teacher and has a Diploma in Leadership and Management.

Steve Harrison and Catherine Haughton - Non-Exec – LDC
Representing LDC investments, Steve and Catherine bring experience from multiple Executive and Non-Executive business environments.  For more information about kidsunlimited's finances please refer to KU Financial Background page. 

Education Advisory Board

To assist the Chief Executive Officer in establishing kidsunlimited as the provider of choice in early years care and education for parents, companies and organisations in both the public and private sectors we have set up a dedicated Education Advisory Board including the following external specialists:

Dr David Singleton OBE MA PhD FRSA taught in maintained and independent schools in the UK and in university in Canada. He joined HM Inspectorate and held national responsibility for Classics. As an Ofsted Divisional Manager, David was responsible for independent schools, school reorganisations, equality of opportunity, inner urban education and issues arising from disadvantage. He managed the inspection of all 150 English Local Education Authorities and of Colleges of Further Education. As Deputy Director (Education) David led on the introduction of the Section 5 inspection arrangements for schools. He left Ofsted to join Nord Anglia Education, for whom he helped to set up an extensive business in the Middle East and worked in Europe, the Middle East and Far East, becoming Education Director. David now works as a free-lance consultant, and is currently advising on the introduction of a Schools Inspectorate in Saudi Arabia and on school improvement in Kuwait.

Mrs Anne Yeomans BA Med is an educational consultant currently developing and leading the Early Years Education and Care strategy for kidsunlimited. Until March 2010 she was the Director of Education Development Services and Director of Educational Quality at Nord Anglia Education. She is a former HM Inspector with 18 years of inspecting schools and teacher education and of managing large-scale national and international surveys. Anne helped to set up both the previous and current primary teacher training inspection cycles and has extensive experience of training, managing and evaluating large numbers of attached inspectors. On joining Nord Anglia, she established quality assurance systems and implemented performance management for inspectors and administrative staff in respect of inspections in England, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. She also led the initial stages of implementing the Kindergarten Project in Qatar. Anne was instrumental in setting up the British International School, Abu Dhabi and in improving the quality of Early Years education throughout the Nord Anglia group.

Sara Knight, CEd, BA (Hons), MA, PGCE, Fellow of Higher Education Academy

Previous Position/Responsibilities

Pathway Leader Foundation Degree Learning Support Assistants, Senior Lecturer on undergraduate and masters level pathways.

General Experience

After working in schools as a Nursery Teacher, including a one-year contract in Norway and a year in the assessment nursery of a Special School, Sara transferred her attention to teaching adults.  She taught on professional training courses for nursery nurses as well as on degree level courses at three Further Education colleges, eventually writing and leading degree programmes for the early years sector.  Alongside this Sara worked with a leading environmental charity, taking programmes into primary and special schools and early years settings that would develop children's awareness of sustainability issues.  Latterly this principally involved the methodology known as Forest School, for which she has written and delivered training programmes.  Since joining Anglia Ruskin University Sara has made national and international links in this area, and is a committee member of the Forest School Special Interest Group in the Institute of Outdoor Learning, and a member of two Higher Education fora supporting Children and Nature.

Publications

Sara has published many articles in professional magazines supporting the work of practitioners. She has contributed chapters to books by Janet Moyles.  Her own books include:

Forest Schools and Outdoor Play in the Early Years, 2009, Sage Publications.

Risk and Adventure in Early Years Outdoor Play: lessons from Forest School, 2011, Sage Publications.

Forest School for All, (edited) 2011, Sage Publications.

Research Interests

Sara's PhD research is on Forest School and its wider place in Outdoor Experiences.  Her papers include:

"A Pilot Study to Test the Correlation between Forest School Experiences in the Foundation Stage and Results from the Foundation Stage Profile in English Schools" presented at the ENSEC conference, 2009, accepted for publication in the Bogaziçi University Journal of Education.

"Valuing Outdoor Spaces: different models of Outdoor Learning in the Early Years" presented at the Anglia Ruskin 2010 conference on Early Years Education in the 21st Century, and accepted for publication in the book for the same title due for publication in 2011.