About Katie
Katie advises schools and academies on a broad range of education law matters.
Katie regularly advises on exclusions, governance, safeguarding, admissions and parental complaints. She has particular expertise in school intervention matters and leads on this part of the firm’s practice. She provides advice to schools that may be vulnerable to formal intervention measures from their local authority or the Secretary of State. She also supports schools with challenging Ofsted inspections. As part of her work in the area of school intervention, Katie contributed to representations made to Parliament on the Education and Adoption Bill.
Katie has also been heavily involved in the academy conversion programme. She has advised on hundreds of academy projects including the creation and expansion of multi-academy trusts and the conversion of church schools, special schools and pupil referral units. She was the lead lawyer on the first hospital school conversion in the country. She now focuses largely on group projects, working closely with various multi-academy trusts on their expansion.
Katie regularly speaks at seminars and national conferences, as well as delivering bespoke training to governing bodies and senior leadership teams on topics such as exclusions, governance and safeguarding. She has featured in the education press having written articles for publications such as Schools Week, Leader magazine and Attendance Matters. Katie has also been interviewed for education pieces in The Guardian and LexisPSL and has written briefing notes for the NAHT and Optimus, as well as Browne Jacobson’s own newsletters and website. She has delivered webinars on topics such as digital safeguarding, parental access to information and re-brokerage.