Derrick Tawiah

Acting Chair

Derrick is a Commercial Manager for the London Borough of Southwark and is currently the Acting Chair for CEN having joined the organisation in 2017 in the key role of Treasurer.

Derrick graduated Middlesex University with an Honorary BA in Finance and Accounting.  His extensive experience across a variety of sectors including Housing, Social Care, Children’s Services, and Reinsurance is the expertise that he brings as a trustee to CEN.

Having grown up as part of a community immediately impacted by the issues on which CEN campaigns, when the opportunity arose, Derrick was keen to serve as a member of CEN’s management committee as he is passionate about addressing the inequalities in society, especially around access to Education.

He is a keen sportsman and for his sins is now part of that ever-growing group of cyclists identified as MAMILs, Middle Aged Man in Lycra. 

Emily Legg

Trustee

Emily Legg is a Fundraising professional with nearly 20 years' experience. She started her career at St John's Ambulance where she supported large teams in the London Marathon to raise over £250,000 and helped to develop corporate partnerships to drive income. She progressed her career in corporate partnerships fundraising in other healthcare charities such as Breast Cancer Now, account managing large corporate partnerships with companies like Avon Cosmetics. 

It was during her 10 year career at Ovarian Cancer Action where she progressed into her first senior leadership role at the age of 30, working with the charity to develop their new organisational strategy and delivering the change to bring the strategy to fruition. 

She has since held Director of Fundraising roles at Myeloma UK, leading a team to raise over £5m per annum, and is currently Director of Fundraising at School of Hard Knocks. It was her experience of working with CEN that inspired her to work for School of Hard Knocks, a social equality charity that runs an intervention programme for young people at risk of exclusion. Having seen the unfair treatment of young people in the disciplinary process through her work with CEN, she works with School of Hard Knocks to prevent young people going down this road.  But when this is not possible, she is proud to be a trustee of CEN who she knows will fight for young people to stay in education and reach their potential.

Eile Gibson

Trustee

Eile Gibson was called to the bar in 1997, converted to become a solicitor and thereafter worked as a corporate tax lawyer. Law was her second career, having previously worked as a financial analyst for some 18 years in the City.

For eight years Eile was a volunteer mentor for Kids Company where she greatly benefited from the ethos and professionalism of that organisation, and whose programmes for helping troubled adolescents she believed should be adopted nationwide.

Eile became acquainted with the services of CEN some time ago when she was helping an ex- mentee who had been permanently excluded for failing to attend a detention. She soon learned about the repercussions  of an unfair schooling system ingrained with unconscious bias and racism, and which focused more on behaviour policies rather than nurturing students. Having been initially trained as a CEN volunteer advocate in 2018, she has continued to represent CEN clients facing exclusions and related difficulties and also acts as a supervisor for other CEN advocates.

Eile’s role as a CEN advocate, has seen her engage with some excellent head teachers. Unfortunately, Eile discovered that for the majority of her cases this was not to be her consistent experience.

Eile became a trustee with CEN in 2023, focusing on Charity Commission requirements, advocate. training and constitutional matters.

Her ideal position would be to replace the power that headteachers hold to permanently exclude, with a greater use of alternative provisions for students needing guidance and discipline; a wholesale change in the schooling system for both recognised and accommodating children with special educational needs (SEND).

Eile considers that appropriate training for all school governors should be made a mandatory statutory requirement particularly with training for SEND, the Equality Act 2010 and school exclusions.

Barbara Aimable

Trustee

Barbara Aimable has worked in the education sector for 40 years. Qualifying as a teacher in 1982, with a BA Hons degree in History & English, and a Certificate in Education.

She became an Acting Headteacher at the age of 35 and a substantive one at the age of 36. Following a short break in her career (to raise her daughter), Barbara returned to education as an Assistant Head, then Deputy at two schools before returning to the role of Headteacher.

In one of her roles as Deputy Head, she took the decision to specialise in Special Educational Needs (SEN) and this knowledge has benefitted every school that Barbara has worked in as Deputy, Headteacher and Interim Headteacher in London.

For several years, Barbara’s extensive experience in the role of a Headteacher has seen her accept a variety  interim roles in schools that were either in difficulty or required the temporary influence of her expertise. These roles were rewarding because they provided Barbara with opportunities to deliver a positive impact within a shorter time frame. In addition, she enjoys the challenge and works extremely hard to ensure that every school she lends her expertise to, is in a much stronger position than before.

In addition, to her role as a CEN trustee, Barbara’s current role is as a consultant working to support Headteachers in two schools in East London.

Barbara is also a writer and has had several works of poetry published. She has written 45 poems to be included in her new book which should be published in 2024. She is currently working on her first poetry book for children.