Ian Gilsenan

Whilst at Newcastle University Ian worked as a Bar Manager and then a Marketing Manager for Choice Hotels Europe and during the summer holidays he was based in London at their head office.

After university Ian's first job was an IT Analyst at Leeds University, then moving back up north as a Database Administrator for Durham County Council. His first role in education was as a Data and IT Manager at Boldon School in South Tyneside. After one term he joined the leadership team as an associate member.

Since then he has worked in 3 other secondary schools in South Tyneside, Wakefield and Sheffield, as Assistant Principal with responsibility for assessment, curriculum, progress and achievement, and IT. Whilst at a school in Wakefield he started an online business working with a colleague who was a DfE Consultant. They developed online pupil tracking systems and after a successful few years decided to focus on their full-time jobs so gave up the company.

Although he is not a qualified teacher his introduction to teaching was due to a timetabling need; Ian timetabled himself as a Year 7 Computing teacher for a year. His last role before joining Delta was as an Assistant Principal in a secondary academy in Sheffield. They were part of the largest MAT at the time but only had a few schools in the North. He began to work as one of their consultants in the North but as they only had a few schools he wanted a role that involved more academies which is why he joined Delta in January 2017.

Ian's areas of expertise within education include analytics, assessment, reporting, curriculum, timetabling and ICT. In addition, he has experience of marketing, website development, systems development and project management.

As one of the few Delta employees that gets to communicate with and visit all of the academies, his average day can be varied. This could be answering queries from any primary, secondary, post-16 or alternative provision colleagues regarding any of the systems we use or the processes and procedures they follow. Training for any employee across all the academies on the systems we use or specific Delta or DfE processes and procedures. Attending meetings with other members of the core team or colleagues in academies. Development work that improves the systems we are already using in order to help further reduce work load, improve efficiency and enable better access to information for a variety of audiences.

Outside of work, you are likely to find Ian playing one of his many guitars; usually heavy metal music. When he's not rocking out, he enjoys DIY and gardening, walking his dog Woody and going to the gym.

Ian decided to work for Delta as they had a number of academies across Yorkshire, both secondary and primary, and it was an exciting time with a new name, new CEO and new focus for the organisation. The Data Director position was also new which therefore gave him some freedom to bring his own knowledge and creativity to the role in order to shape how this small area of the business would grow.

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