Aspley Guise Village School
Governance and Financial Information
Governance
THE ROLE OF THE GOVERNING BODY
The governing body provides non-executive leadership. Its role is to operate as a board akin to the board of trustees of a charity, or the board of directors of a company. In all matters, the ‘board of governors’ operates at a strategic level, leaving the headteacher responsible and accountable to it for the operational day-to-day running of the school.
“As the strategic leaders of their organisations it is vital that boards are connected with, and answerable to, the communities they serve, particularly parents/carers...
Boards should ensure that their organisation is regularly communicating with parents and carers and that parental engagement is used by the board to inform their strategic decision-making.”
Department for Education Governance Handbook (2019)
As a governing board we are answerable to all our stakeholders, and in particular to the parents and carers of the children who attend our school. Clear and effective communication between governors, the school, and the home is essential to enable schools and parents to work together and thereby help our children achieve more.
We therefore want to hear what you think of our school, both the good bits and any ways you think we could make it better. We also want to hear any particular concerns or worries you may have – in many instances the staff and head teacher will be best placed to deal with these, but if there is anything specific you would like to tell us about then please do get in touch.
You can contact the governors by email (see details below), grab us in the playground, write to us (letters can be handed into the school office) or sit down and chat with us at one of our soon-to-be-implemented once-a-term coffee mornings. Certain governors have specific responsibilities that may be relevant to your question, or alternatively just get in touch with one of the parent governors whose primary role is to represent yourselves, the parents! All emails and letters will be treated with full confidentiality and will be responded to by the governor(s) addressed.
Jamie Ross (Chair of Governors/ Local Authority Governor)
Jamie has lived in Aspley Guise for the past 10 years. Both of his children were educated at Aspley Guise School and now are attending Vandyke Upper School. He has an extensive 30+ year commercial finance career and over the past 12 years has run his own commercial consultancy business with his wife, Pippa. Jamie served as the Local Authority Governor and Chair of Resources for 5 years until the beginning of 2022 and has decided to return once more taking up his position from the Autumn Term 2022.
Thomas Berry (Parent Governor/Vice Chair of Governors)
Tom has been a police officer with the Metropolitan Police for twenty years, of which the last fifteen years have been leading Specialist Investigation units in the prosecution of Organised Criminal Networks and the highest harm offenders. Tom has developed extensive safeguarding knowledge through his work with Domestic Violence Units and Youth Offending Teams, and with public and charitable sector bodies. Tom joined the Governing Body in 2022, lives in Aspley Guise and has two children who attend the school.
Trusha Shah(Parent Governor)
Trusha joined the Governing body in 2023. Her background is in engineering and product management working with multiple corporations from different sectors in marketing and commercial roles. She has also worked within the education sector to improve education with audio visual products for all ages.
She lives in Aspley Guise with a daughter in Year 1 and her youngest starting Reception in Sept 23. Its important for her to support the school to ensure it remains part of the village to give all children locally a brilliant start to their education.
Asha Lall (Parent Governor)
Asha joined the Governing Body in 2023. Further information to follow.
Brian Glover (Co-opted Governor)
Brian joined the Governing Body in 2019 and is Chair of the Curriculum Committee. Brian is retired, having spent 40+years working in education, including as Principal of a community college, a Chief Education Officer for a Local Authority, and a Project Director for a national school building project. He also worked in the private sector advising multinational companies about their engagement with the government, both national and local.
Emma Gray (Staff Governor)
Emma has a degree in Drama and went on to complete her PGCE in primary school teaching. Emma has taught at Aspley Guise for 5 years and is currently the year 2 teacher. She has a love for all things English and has been the English lead at school since September 2022. Having just joined the Governing Body in April 2022 she looks forward to supporting the school further.
Richard Dale (Parent Governor)
Richard joined the Governing body in 2022. His background is in engineering management and over the past 25 years has worked in production, sales and large scale projects, holding roles in business development, engineering management and proposals. In consultancy roles he has developed proposals and provided procurement support within industrial settings.
He lives in Aspley Guise just a few minutes walk from AGVS and has three small children, with one in Reception at the school. As such it is important to him and his family that the school continues to thrive into the future, during and beyond its status change to Primary, and remains the important community hub it is.
Tamsin Lee-Woolfe (Parent Governor)
Tamsin joined the Governing Body in September 2023 as her daughter started Reception. She has lived in Aspley Guise for 8 years and is looking forward to learning more about how to support the school.
She currently works in a project management role at King’s College London, and previously in research and educational roles at various museums and art organisations, including The National Gallery and Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. She holds a BA and MPhil in Art History from Birmingham University and has a doctorate in Art History from Nottingham University.
Derek Sheills (Co-opted Governor)
Derek joined the Governing Body in September 2023. Derek has worked in higher education for 34 years in a range of roles. These include the leadership of several large teams of professional services staff. He is currently Head of Curriculum Strategy and Governance for the Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics at The Open University. He was also an Associate Lecturer for 22 years, in that time teaching degree stage one social science to over 300 students. He lives in Milton Keynes.
Vacancy (Co-opted Governor)
If you are interested in becoming a governor at the school, please contact the school office for more information.
Financial Information
Information on how the school spends relative to other schools can be found here.
No employees have a salary greater than £100,000/year.
The school can provide paper copies of any documents shown on the website, free of charge. However, in making any such requests, we ask that you consider the administration associated with this alongside the environmental impact of asking for print rather than accessing the documents electronically.
