Following a thorough recruitment process, Duane Chappell has been appointed to the role of assistant director for education and learning, following the recent retirement of Cheryl Eyre.
Duane, who is the council’s current head of SEND and specialist support services, will take up the role from 1 January. In the interim, she will be looking at how to structure the council’s SEND team from the new year.
Since Duane joined the council this summer, she has made significant progress on our Written Statement of Action and has made big improvements to our SEND service.
Her experience and genuine passion for SEND made her the obvious choice for the assistant director role, where she will continue to have strategic oversight of the SEND service and improvement programme.
Previously, Duane held strategic SEND roles at two other councils before joining Bracknell Forest. She has also worked as a secondary school maths teacher and has held several roles as a middle and senior leader within schools.
This summer, seven new SEND staff joined Bracknell Forest Council to support the SEND statutory support services and SEND specialist support services teams.
Chris Kiernan, interim assistant director of education and learning, will remain in this role until the end of December to allow Duane to firm up the new structure and make appointments as necessary.
More information on the new staffing structure will be made available in due course.
