Meet the team!

Tom Welch

Founder and Director

Turn IT On is Tom’s brain-child and, in 2003, the company came into being. Tom was working in a large Oxfordshire primary school at the time and saw the need to provide a friendly and professional IT Support service to primary schools to ensure they got value for money from their ICT equipment.  Tom’s role now covers the many aspects of running a busy company.  He has always had a vision of creating a company with a positive, friendly ethos and employing a like-minded, knowledgeable team which he has achieved (even if we do say so ourselves). His belief is that IT support for primary schools should be a combination of technical support, curriculum support and strategic planning.

Alan Sadler

Hampshire ICT Consultant

Alan joined us in 2006 having previously been the head of ICT at a large Southampton secondary school. He now supports 17 schools across Hampshire, Surrey and the Isle of Wight and in them he deals with a myriad of networks. Some of the strings to Alan’s network bow include RM CC3, RM CC4, Storebox, Edict, Net Plus, Lynx Education Suite and Vanilla.

Alan also squeezes time into his days to surf and has taken this passion as far afield as Mexico where he picked up a love for cooking Mexican cuisine. He also loves absorbing himself in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series and restoring old Vespa scooters, but not always at the same time.

Ben Hart

London Lead ICT Consultant

Before joining Turn IT On, Ben taught abroad for some time and found himself setting up an ICT training centre in Malawi where he wrote the national IT curriculum that has been adopted by teacher training centres across the entire country. Ben is adept at providing a part-technical-part-curriculum based style of support. Ben’s schools are all across London and in them he fixes technical issues that have arisen throughout the week, teaches model IT lessons and, in some schools, he stays and runs after school clubs for students.

Ben reached black belt level in TaeKwon-Do and occasionally teaches classes.

Ben Turton

Surrey ICT Consultant

Ben’s background in IT support, network administration and teaching ICT made him a natural choice for Turn IT On. He supports 12 schools in Surrey and works with RM CC3, RM CC4 networks as well as the fantastic value for money Turn IT On Discover Network. He loves the variety of work at Turn IT On and the fact that no two days are the same. This diverse job description was demonstrated one year when, being the only male in the vicinity, he was asked to dress up as Father Christmas (it’s all in a day’s work at Turn IT On).  Apart from impersonating Santa, Ben enjoys obsessively playing his guitar, reading, appreciating Real Ale (capitals required), developing Lego robots and defending his title as AC/DC’s biggest fan.

Bob Evans

Oxfordshire ICT Consultant

Either as a student himself, as a teacher, as an advisory ICT teacher or as a Turn IT On consultant, Bob has found himself based in the classroom for most of his life. He joined Turn IT On in 2005 and now supports 11 schools in Oxfordshire, all of which have RM CC4 networks or the Turn IT On Discover Network  Apart from offering technical support, Bob still dons his teaching cap when required and runs after school clubs, supports teachers during lessons and also takes their classes from time to time. Sadly, Bob cannot always be in the classroom as he feels it’s his other duty to keep up with Spurs’ latest victories and Muse tour dates. That's when he's not cycling round the green, green grass of Oxfordshire or tending to the green, green grass of his garden, of course.

Bob Young

Installations co-ordinator

Bob joined Turn IT On in July 2011.  Prior to Turn IT On he worked in the mobile phone industry co-ordinating installations of core networks.  He has also spent many years in the RAF.  He is a keen Arsenal fan.

Brendon Ford

Oxforshire ICT Consultant

Brendon joined Turn IT On in 2011.  Brendon is from South Africa and had many years of working in the South African IT sector before coming to the UK in 2010.  As well as working as an ICT consultant in a number of Oxfordshire primary schools he is also helping to lead our broadband services team.  In his spare time Brendon is a keen hockey and cricket player as well as a massive fan of online gaming.

Carol Noxon

Buckinghamshire ICT Consultant

Before joining Turn IT On Carol worked for Buckinghamshire County Council providing ICT support to schools in Buckinghamshire.  Carol is now part of our fantastic Buckinghamshire team.  She supports RM CC4 networks, CC3 networks as well as Vanilla windows systems.  Schools love the dedicated and local ICT support service that carol delivers.

Catherine Morley

Accounts and Office Manager

Catherine has worked in all sorts of managerial and administrative roles in various hotels after studying Hotel Management at university. For 9 years Catherine managed the membership system and accounts for a prestigious golf club before she came to Turn IT On in 2008.  Catherine is Turn IT On’s financial virtuoso and looks after Turn IT On’s accounts, schools’ contracts and runs our busy office. Catherine can lay claim to having been an out-and-out thrill seeker before having children. Backpacking around the world for a year, white water rafting, parachute jumping and climbing Ayers Rock are some of Catherine’s adrenaline-packed past adventures, although she admits she now needs to be more sensible. She now chooses yoga, cycling and running.

Charlie Rowe

Technical Team Manager

Charlie joined Turn IT On in 2007 after having been a school ICT Coordinator and, later, a teacher trainer in Pakistan where he was largely involved with technical maintenance.
Charlie joined the Turn IT On management team in 2011.  He is responsible for ensuring that our technical development moves at the pace it must.  Schools are constantly looking for us to offer advice on the latest technical developments and charlie must ensure that Turn IT On is up to speed.  His team also look after the development of the Turn IT On Discover network.
Outside school hours, Charlie is a keen guitarist and a qualified Kung Fu instructor. He was once head chef of a pub restaurant which has left him with an abiding fondness of good beer.

Christine Cowley

Oxfordshire and Swindon ICT Consultant

Chris joined us in 2009 and has brought with her a wealth of experience gained in her previous roles in teaching, as an ICT coordinator and as an administrator for National Power.

She now supports a number of schools in Swindon and Oxfordshire and mixes teaching with technical advice. In her first months with us she enjoyed getting to grips with all the assorted daily challenges presented to Turn IT On consultants. Chris owns a Lotus which she drives whatever the weather and her indoor activities include immersing herself in historical fiction and getting her daily fix of online Sudoku.

David Powles

Oxfordshire ICT Consultant and Account Manager

David’s background is in business management and economic research. It was during working in this field that he developed a keen interest in IT. His technical knowledge in this role paved the way for his move to become IT manager of a primary school and, since August 2010, a technical consultant for Turn IT On.  David has progressed into becoming a key part of Turn  IT On's sales team and is responsible for account management visits to existing customers.  He has also taken the lead role in our broadband service for schools. David is one of Turn IT On’s sports fans and is an accomplished cricketer. He also enjoys football, swimming, golf and the challenge of renovating a house in his spare time.

Emma Sadler

HR and Payroll Manager

Emma came to Turn IT On after having been a science teacher at a large Berkshire secondary school. She left this role when she had the first of her two children but she still draws on the adaptability and organisational skills associated with teaching while looking after Turn IT On’s HR and payroll.  Emma is tasked with, among many other things, arranging Turn IT On’s pension scheme, our childcare voucher scheme, CRB checks, overtime, expenses claims and, the best part, paying people. Emma also invariably organises Turn IT On summer and Christmas events.  Emma is heavily involved with life and events in the local area. She also enjoys the delights of motherhood which, of course, is a full-time career in itself.

Heather Cotton

SIMS/FMS Consultant

Heather has 25 years experience supporting schools with SIMS.  She has been responsible for  the design and delivery of many SIMS training courses, seminars and workshops including: Attendance, Personnel and School Census.

Ian Hughes

Accountant

Ian worked as company secretary at Crest Nicholson.  His experience and expertise is crucial to our expanding business.

Jai Campbell

London ICT Consultant

Jai is one of our London-based technical consultants whose technical skills are largely self-taught. Jai has cemented his knowledge by achieving various professional exams and now supports schools of all sizes which run Vanilla and RM networks.  On a day-to-day basis Jai deals with a mixture of common technical maintenance tasks right through to network project development. He finds it a rewarding challenge to help enable the IT in the 10 schools he supports to run smoothly. In his spare time Jai enjoys puzzling the theories around relativity, time travel and quantum physics. His other interests include the Large Hadron Collider and of course his young daughter.

James Brew

London ICT Consultant

James has worked for Turn IT On supporting primary schools with their IT since 2011.  He is our chief MSI package creator and as also spent a lot of time helping to create the WDS functionality for the Turn IT On Discover Network.

John Dickinson

Surrey ICT Consultant

John joined Turn IT On in 2011.  He knows Surrey schools very well having previously worked for Babcock 4S. He now provides IT support for a few very large schools in Surrey, including 1 academy that was previously 3 separate schools. 

Kevin Ferguson

Oxfordshire ICT Consultant

Kevin’s intrigue into the realm of ICT began in secondary school when, having been told he could not play computer games in class unless he wrote them himself, he did just that – and discovered he was very good at it. Eventually this led to him pursuing a career in computer support.  Kevin looks after the ICT and networks in 17 schools across Oxford, Surrey, Middlesex and Buckinghamshire and he thrives on the diversity that his range of schools brings. Driving to all the locations to reach his schools appeals to Turn IT On’s self-confessed ‘petrol head’, although driving the Nürburgring in Germany presented much more of a challenge. As well as this exhilarating pastime, Kevin is a dog lover.

Laura Evans

Marketing Manager

Laura graduated with an English and Psychology degree and has always known she wanted to use her love for writing in a creative role.  After university Laura completed a graduate teaching scheme and was involved with Cherwell Theatre Company helping to publicise their ventures in the local area. She loves the creative and resourceful element of her role and she has been involved with creating new marketing campaigns. Laura has now created many websites for schools and leads this aspect of our business.  Laura enjoys travelling, reading, films, theatre, art, learning German and cooking.

Luke Wilbraham

ICT Consultant and Installations Technician

The majority of Luke’s technical knowledge was gleaned from a career in marine electronics in which he designed and tested new products which then went to market.

He has also taken various technical courses which have helped prepare him for carrying out emergency visits to schools and carrying out many of Turn IT On’s installations. As such, Luke is Turn IT On’s ‘go-to man’, often to be found driving to the rescue of a school in need of urgent technical help. In addition to all this, Luke regularly offers his technical services to six schools in the south of England that have Turn IT On support contracts.

Lynn Brittain

Oxfordshire ICT Consultant

Lynn joined Turn IT On in January 2010 straight out of the classroom. She spent thirteen years as a class teacher, as a member of the senior management team, as an upper Key Stage 2 team leader and, later, as an ICT co-ordinator in various schools across the world.  Lynn caught the IT bug from her dad and brother and spent subsequent years playing with and on computers. Based in Oxford, Lynn supports two village infant schools and three large primaries in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire all of which use CC4 networks. In these schools Lynn implements staff training, models lessons on different programs: in short, she works in the roles of both technician and coordinator. Lynn enjoys the variety of people she meets and places she goes along with the problem solving aspect to the work.

Mark Jenkins

Technical service desk lead

Mark is responsible for the technical support of the admin networks in schools and has extensive technical knowledge.  He has worked in this role for over 4 years and prior to this position, was an excellent IT Technician at a Secondary School in Buckinghamshire.

Mega Karuppiah

Oxfordshire ICT Consultant and Team Lead

Mega has a dual role at Turn IT On. As a consultant he provides regular support to six schools around Oxfordshire and he also provides secondary level support to any school with an admin contract.  Mega joined us in 2008 after graduating from Oxford Brookes University with a BSc (Hons) in Computing and Software Engineering. He gained his practical experience and knowledge in his previous post as an ICT Computer hall assistant and by achieving his IT diploma in Malaysia.  Mega loves to travel and his list of dream locations is ever-growing. Luckily his other interests are somewhat portable: he’s an avid reader and he has always enjoyed computing so he can keep up with these pursuits when he visits his favourite far-flung destinations.

Melanie Phillips

SIMS/FMS Consultant

Melanie has provided FMS support for over 10 years and prior to that worked as a Finance Officer in schools. She has designed and delivered numerous FMS training courses, seminars and workshops to Secondary and Primary Cheque Book and Non-Cheque Book Schools, Music Centres and Academies. She was the project lead for migration of FMS in schools from SQL Anywhere to SQL 2005.

Nigel Starkey

Installations Manager

Nigel joined Turn IT On in October 2009 after having formalised his extensive working IT knowledge with a number of qualifications.  After being a schools consultant for over a year his role changed to become Turn IT On's installations manager. He works closely with the installs team to ensure that all the plans are in place to provide an effective installation at the school, whether it is a Turn IT On Server Solution, a wireless network or a projector installation .

Nigel is an avid spectator, former participator, of many sports and loves spending as much time as he can with his young twin daughters.

Rachel Gray

SIMS Consultant

Rachel has a wealth of knowledge of the modules in Sims.net and draws experience from supporting SIMS for over 5 years.  Her specialist area is the Assessment Module and Rachel is responsible for delivering training and offering advice for tailor made solutions to Assessment requirements in schools.  

Raj Panchal

London ICT Consultant

Raj worked as a teacher for a number of years before joining Turn IT On in 2011.  He has had the unique experience of setting up the very first Turn IT On Apple school.  He is currently writing an IT curriculum for primary schools based on Apple software and iPads. 

Ron Touw

Technical team senior consultant

Ron is known as Columbo among the Turn IT On team due to his uncanny knack of being able to get to the bottom of any technical mystery put to him. Before joining Turn IT On, Ron worked for 30 years in central government analysing complex technical IT problems.  His role has developed since he joined us in 2005 and involves lots of diplomacy and advice-giving, disaster recovery planning, long term strategy work, analysing complex networking and server based issues, and, one time, helping a caretaker remove a child’s head from between two railings. IT support and training is his expertise and he has now developed a number of IT solutions that are being regularly used at our Turn IT On primary schools.

Ruth Wilbraham

Operations Manager

Ruth has been able to completely immerse herself in the company since her appointment as consultant in 2007. Since then her role has evolved somewhat and she is now Turn IT On’s Fields Operations Manager meaning she is often to be found attempting the nigh on impossible task of juggling times, dates, schools and consultants and relaying them into an organised system.

Ruth is still hands-on in her role and provides IT support to two schools in Swindon and one in Buckinghamshire. She gleaned her wealth of technical experience from her previous roles including being a Network Manager of a large secondary school in Surrey. Ruth is a keen sailor, walker and biker and is also partial to a game of badminton.

Simon Baker

Technical Service desk

Simon is based from our office in Princes Risborough.  His script writing abilities have enabled speedy solutions to complex problems.  His scripts are a major benefit to all staff at Turn IT On.  He is someone who can write a fix to a common problem which we can then apply to all the server based networks we support.  This provides a fantastic economy of scale.

Steve Jefferson

Wiltshire ICT Consultant

Steve provides hands-on support to his Swindon and Wiltshire schools and learned most of his knowledge on the job; ‘the hard way’, as he puts it. He came to us in 2008 after being a systems manager for a large secondary school.  Steve enjoys the change of environment that working with Turn IT On provides: he feels he can now makes a real difference to schools. This was confirmed when, one year, a student from one of the special schools Steve supports made him a Christmas hat to wear which Steve took as the ultimate sign of acceptance.

Tim Hart

London ICT Consultant and Team Leader

Tim is Turn IT On’s lead consultant in London.  Working closely with his brother Ben, Tim is helping develop Turn IT On in London. As well as account management, new sales and team leadership Tim does provide support for a number of schools in London. During this rolehe spends time liaising with teaching staff, software and hardware support groups, the London Grid for Learning, Atomwide and Fronter to ensure best practice IT is followed in each school.  Tim devotes much of his spare time to volunteering for projects for the Emerging Humanity Charity in Kenya and the charity is a cause very close to Tim’s heart. So much so, in fact, that in December 2007 he got married in Kisumu where one of these projects took place.

Tom Magawly

London and Surrey ICT Consultant

Tom graduated with a Computer Science degree which concentrated on the effect ICT and software has on education. Having previously worked in schools Tom was familiar with the education environment so this, combined with his technical ability, made him a natural addition to our team.  In September 2010 Tom began supporting London schools in which he faces daily network, server, software and hardware challenges. The part of the job Tom finds the most rewarding is knowing he has made a difference to children’s education by helping lessons run smoothly and as they should. In his spare time Tom is a keen traveller, musician, tennis player and film addict.

Tom Owen

Surrey ICT Consultant

Tom joined Turn IT On in 2011.  He is based in Surrey and most of the time provides IT Support to Surrey schools.  He does however find himself travelling into London as well and has also been co-ordinating our support at a group of schools based around the UK.

David Pryse

Oxfordshire ICT Consultant

David joined Turn IT On in April 2012.  David was the first person to go through the apprenticeship scheme at Turn IT On.  He was hugely impressive during that time and therefore found himself being offered a full time role.  He lives in Oxfordshire and supports schools in the county due to the recent growth of our business in the county where we started.

Jackie Blunt

Orders co-ordinator

Jackie joined Turn IT On in 2012 and has become part of our busy office team.  When our consultants need to order parts and equipment they will send it through to Jackie who will search on their behalf for the most suitable equipment at the best prices.  This crucial role frees up our consultants to spend their time on other activities at the school.

Ciaran Morrison

London ICT Consultant

Ciaran joined Turn IT On in 2012 having previously worked as an IT Technician for Lewisham council.

Helen Barnard

SIMS/FMS Administrator

Helen joined our SIMS team in 2012 having previously worked for Buckinghamshire County Council for many years.  She is responsible for the administration of that area of our business and co-ordinates the many training courses and workshops that we run.

Mike Burton

Oxfordshire ICT Consultant

Mike spent 20 years working for RM, before joining Turn IT On in December 2011.  Mike was responsible for installing CC4 networks at RM and his experience and expertise in this area has been crucial for Turn IT On and of great use to the rest of our consultants.  Having his specific knowledge is further proof that a larger team can get things done quicker.  Whenever we have a more complicated CC4 issue he is someone we can turn to.

Jamie Gorman

Buckinghamshire ICT Consultant

Jamie joined Turn IT On in 2012.  Jamie had previously worked for another company supporting schools in Buckinghamshire.

Matthew Wimpenny-Smith

Buckinghamshire ICT Consultant

David Gardner

London ICT Consultant

David joined Turn IT On in 2012.  He previously worked in a large secondary academy in London and was responsible for data management there. He comes with great experience of CERCO management information systems as well as some excellent training and technical expertise.