Our Life Patrons page highlights a group of long-term supporters committed to advancing the academy’s mission. These patrons bring extensive field experience and work closely with the academy’s leadership to guide its strategic growth. Their contributions and insights aim to foster a supportive environment where students can thrive academically and personally.
Gordon Phillips
Lead Member
Gordon is the lead sponsor for Knole Academy and became involved with the academy at its inception in 2008, and was a member of the project steering group. Gordon regularly meets with the other sponsors, the chair of governors, and the principal to look at the strategic development of the academy.
Gordon believes all young people have potential and respond best in a safe, well-ordered and disciplined environment, stating that it is our responsibility to inspire and provide exceptional learning environments so all young people can reach their maximum potential. This will give them the qualifications and personal skills that will help them to make the right choices for their future and to succeed in adult life.
Alison Beckett
Member
Alison was appointed Chair of Governors at Sevenoaks School in December 2020. She joined the Governing Body in 2013 and has been Chair of the Education Committee. She attended the City of London School for Girls, read Geography at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and gained an MBA at London Business School. Alison has worked in consulting firms and industry and is a consultant at Egon Zehnder, the leading global leadership advisory firm. She has two daughters who studied at Sevenoaks School and lives in London. She is also a non-executive committee member of the Finance and General Purposes Committee at the Zoological Society of London.
Pam Tolhurst BEM
Member
The first 17 years of the world of work afforded Pam administrative opportunities with the Royal National Institute for the Blind, where she gained wide experience in the rehabilitation and training of people who were registered as blind and partially sighted. On ‘spreading her wings’ beyond that focus, she worked for 14 years until 2001 at what was at the time of the appointment Sevenoaks School for Girls. Pam’s initial employment as School Secretary led her to fulfil the role of Administration Manager, Head Teacher’s Secretary and Clerk to the Governors. Pam remembers the work involved in the school’s name change to The Bradbourne School.
Pam’s previous experience in the welfare of blind people was enhanced in 2001 through employment with Kent Association for the Blind as a guide communicator working with deaf-blind people. In 2004, she was commissioned as a Local Church Leader at Gillingham United Reformed Church in the Medway Towns. Pam continues to fulfil that call with the privilege of enjoying wider opportunities within the national church. Pam still lives in the house where she was born in Sevenoaks, and she is very grateful for the invitations afforded her to maintain contact with Knole Academy. Pam really enjoys engaging with people and has a ‘pastoral heart’.
Robert Sackville-West
Member
After studying History at Oxford University and business at the London Business School, Robert Sackville-West worked in publishing, in 1985 founding Toucan Books, which creates illustrated non-fiction books for an international market. He now combines that with chairing Knole Estates, the property and investment company which – in parallel with the National Trust – runs the Sackville family’s interests at Knole. Among other voluntary roles, Robert has a long-standing interest in education. Until 2008, he was chairman of the governing body at Sevenoaks School and is currently chairman of the Sevenoaks School Foundation. He is a governor (and chair of the Finance and Premises Committee) at the Knole Academy in Sevenoaks and a director of the UK board of the International Baccalaureate Organization. He is a trustee of the Chevening Estate, a trustee of the Royal Oak Foundation, and a deputy-lieutenant of Kent.
Robert is the author of the critically acclaimed Inheritance: The Story of Knole and the Sackvilles (2010) and The Disinherited (2014).
Click here to meet our Local Governing Body.