Amanda Bailey

School Trust Leader, Dixons Academies Trust

Amanda started her career working for a number of commercial organisations including Marks and Spencer and United Utilities initially in HR but later across finance, IT, business process and shared services. In 2006, she fulfilled a lifelong ambition, retraining as a teacher of science and then joining the Future Leaders programme in 2008. Amanda worked in several schools cross the north west as a senior school leader. Since 2012, Amanda has combined her skills and experience to lead on operations and finance within the academy movement initially for Bright Futures Educational Trust and most recently for Star Academies before joining Dixons in 2021. Since November 2023, Amanda has taken on a part time role working on the business transformation project at Dixons.

1 Workshop series three

Transforming business services to improve support for schools

At our last Finance and Operations Conference, we heard how Dixons Academies Trust was radically reimagining its business services to schools, and the rigorous foundations it had established for service transformation. A year on, we are delighted to welcome the Dixons' Project and Service Leads back to share their experience of implementation. Tom Rennie, Amanda Bailey and Orrin Campbell will set out what has been achieved in phase one, its impact, and the feedback received. They will also outline how and what the second phase will deliver in spring 2025, and their new approach to the continuous improvement of business services to their schools.