Dame Maureen Brennan (née Eddy; born 26 March 1954) is an English educator from the West Midlands. She is the previous CEO of Matrix Academy Trust, a position she accepted after serving as headteacher at Barr Beacon School and as principal at Hillcrest School and Community College in Netherton, West Midlands. Early life and education Born in Erdington before moving to Small Heath where she spent most of her childhood, Brennan attended Holy Family Primary School. Her father was a Detective Superintendent in the West Midlands Police. She was accepted into St Agnes RC Grammar School for Girls before achieving a Bachelor of Education in 1976 from Newman College at the University of Birmingham. Career Brennan's first teaching role was as a Geography and PE teacher at St Chad's RC School - a split site school between Aston and Hockley. She then moved to Ladywood School in 1980 where she was Head of Geography. After spending five years working with the Birmingham Advisory and Support Service as a Staff Development Tutor and Equal Opportunities Coordinator, in 1990 she moved to Great Barr School in Great Barr, Birmingham Brennan worked at Great Barr as a Deputy Head Teacher to over 2,400 students. After a decade at Great Barr, she took over as Principal of Hillcrest School and Community College. Brennan let it be known that Hillcrest School had "no structures, systems or routines" when she took over in September 2000 when it was in special measures. By 2003 the school was rated as "very good" by Ofsted and had "rapidly and impressively improved over the last two and a half years from weakness to its present high position. The School's progress was recognised by the accolade of a national School Achievement Award in 2002. By 2007, Hillcrest was rated Outstanding by Ofsted and Brennan was praised for the turnaround at the school. The report said "Leadership and management at all levels are of the highest standard and make an outstanding contribution to raising attainment within the school." One of her recipes for changing that was the introduction of a "house system and a prefectorial system". She introduced formal routines such as pupils standing up when someone walks into the classroom; she also got rid of the bells that sounded the end of each lesson. Other measures included a sin bin or exclusion room (dubbed the "doom room" by the pupils) where