Charlotte Afzal – Head of School

Charlotte has extensive experience working with children and young people with a range of emotional and social needs. Prior to joining Longdon Hall School she was Assistant Headteacher at Longdon Park School, specifically overseeing the pastoral programme and safeguarding in this Options school that specialises in supporting pupils with ASC.

As Head of School at Longdon Hall School Charlotte has been instrumental in driving forwards a range of initiatives, most notably the development of The Ferns at Longdon, our provision for pupils with high levels of anxiety. In addition to overseeing the day-to-day running of The Ferns, Charlotte has whole school responsibility for Behaviour and Attitudes and works closely with the other members of the senior leadership team on the development of Longdon Hall’s strategy for continued improvement.

Steph Nickless  – Head of Safeguarding and Pastoral Care

Steph joined Longdon Hall School 8 years ago as a member of the Pastoral team. She was given the opportunity to develop the family support service that the school offers and has since become the safeguarding officer. Prior to working at Longdon Hall School, she was a project worker with Barnardo’s for 11 years, supporting families, children and young people who were experiencing many different challenges such as abuse, sub-stance misuse, criminality, domestic abuse and poverty.

Steph also manages our Pastoral Team, supporting them to put in place interventions to support pupils who require a greater level of pastoral input and working closely with the entire staff team to reduce the frequency of restrictive physical interventions.

Steph has worked hard to ensure all the systems and processes for Safeguarding at Longdon Hall are robust and keep all children safe. The high level of her work in this area was recognised in our most recent Ofsted inspection.

Rob Blyth- Deputy Head Teacher

Following a successful career in Design, Rob trained as a teacher of Art and Design in which role he worked in mainstream and secondary schools prior to moving into educational leadership positions. He worked as a senior leader in Pupil Referral Units and specialist SEMH schools prior to joining Longdon Hall School.

As Deputy Head at Longdon Hall School, Rob has oversight of and responsibility for Quality of Education. He works closely with the entire staff to ensure that the lessons delivered to our pupils are of the highest quality and that assessment and feedback are used to continually raise the standard of the educational offer of the school.