Michael Trott
Michael Trott trained as a teacher and taught Mathematics, Statistics and IT in Essex and the West Midlands. He adopted Information Technology in his teaching as soon as personal computers became available in the early 1980s and was one of the first teachers to gain a Diploma in the use of IT in Education.
This led to him being seconded to the government’s Computing in Schools Project from 1981 to 1984. During this period he designed and developed educational software and was involved in teacher training. Following this he spent 2 years as an Advisory Teacher in IT for Sandwell.
From 1989 to 1995 Michael ran his own company developing and selling both educational and business software and launched two educational magazines on the use of IT in Education.
From 1995 to 2000 he worked as an Assessor at Hereward College where he became involved in assessments for the Disabled Students Allowance. In 2000 he left Hereward College to open the AccessCentral Assessment Centre in Birmingham.
Over the past 14 years he has conducted over 2,500 assessments for students with a wide range of disabilities. He was a member of the DIUS Quality Assurance Group which developed the Quality Assurance Framework for DSA assessments. Combined with his teaching and software design background and his practical problem solving nature this provides him with a wealth of experience to draw on when conducting assessments.
John Goodacre
Having qualified as a teacher in 1977, John worked for ten years teaching children with learning difficulties in Nottingham and latterly Solihull.
In 1987 he took up his first post in a general further education college where he first became involved in the work of the National Federation of ACCESS Centres.
In 1987 he was made manager of the Eastern Regional ACCESS Centre in Letchworth, Hertfordshire, he also became Vice Chair of the National Federation of ACCESS Centres and was a member of the Steering Group and Regional Co-ordinator for six years.
In June 1995 John became Manager of the ACCESS Centre and Student Services at Hereward College. Due to restructuring within the college he later had responsibility at various times for Physiotherapy, Speech & Language Therapy, Educational Psychology, Volunteers, Educational Enabling and Examinations.
John has been involved in assessing and supporting the diverse needs of further education and higher education students with physical and/or sensory disabilities since 1987. Since 1989 John has provided expert evidence on the additional cost of equipment and support for the physically, sensory and mentally disabled people for both personal injury and medical negligence claims.
After 14 years as ACCESS Centre Manager at Hereward John joined the team at AccessCentral in April 2009.