Meet the Team

Mark Siswick is the Co-CEO of the Wandle Learning Trust. Mark also heads up the Wandle Learning Partnership, which has strategic oversight of the work of the Wandle Teaching School Hub, Early Years Hub, English Hub and the South West London Maths Hub. Mark has advised the DfE on a range of topics including the reform of professional development frameworks in teaching and early reading strategies.  His work to take synthetic phonics online as part of the Covid-19 emergency in 2020 was recognised in the 2020 Honours list, in which he was awarded an MBE for services to education.

Most recently, Mark has led the development of the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised Programme, a complete Systematic Synthetic Phonics Programme, which includes 400 online lessons for the teaching of Letters and Sounds Phonics.

Mark works as a National Leader of Education and is a member of the Teaching School Hubs Council.

Christian Kingsley is the Co-CEO and the Accounting Officer of Wandle Learning Trust as well as being the Headteacher of Chestnut Grove Academy; a high performing Secondary School in South London. Christian led the conversion of Chestnut Grove to academy status in 2011, the first converter school in Wandsworth, and later partnered with Mark Siswick, the then Head of Chesterton Primary School to form Wandle Learning Trust in 2017. Christian is an OFSTED inspector and regularly inspects schools in the South-East region of England. He is also a governor for the Wandsworth PRU and a Primary School in Epsom. Surrey.

Tom joined Wandle in December 2025, bringing strong financial and operational leadership underpinned by a deep understanding of the education sector. His experience has been gained through working at the Department for Education and across two multi-academy trusts.

Tom is a qualified accountant (FCA) with the ICAEW and has held a number of senior roles throughout his career. Most recently, he was a Director at the Harris Federation, where he led and supported a broad portfolio including Estates, Health & Safety, Procurement, IT, Compliance, Governance and Trust growth.

At Wandle, Tom is responsible for all Trust operations, including Finance, Governance, IT, HR and Estates.