Governing Body

Governing Board

The Governing Board, Headteacher and senior staff form the school Leadership and Management team and share responsibility for the school.  The Governing Board must hold the school to account for the standards it achieves.  It must ensure that all resources (including the school budget and staff) are properly used to meet the needs of all children and provide value for money.  Governors help to develop the School Improvement Plan and are responsible for monitoring all aspects of its effectiveness in terms of outcomes for pupils.

Who are the Governors?

The Governing Board is made up of 4 groups who represent the stakeholders of the school: staff, parents, the community and the Local Authority.  This range of people is intended to provide a broad and balanced selection of viewpoints and to represent each sector of the school’s community. Governors are volunteers. An effective Governing Board will have members who have a wide range of experience and a variety of skills to offer their school. They typically have a term of office of for four years and during this time will have a variety of responsibilities.

Key roles of governors:

  • To ensure clarity of vision, ethos and strategic direction
  • To hold the headteacher to account for the educational performance of the school and its pupils, and the performance management of staff
  • To oversee the financial performance of the school and make sure its money is well spent 

The constitution of the Downsview Governing Board is:

  •  The Headteacher
  • 6 Co-opted Governors
  • 1 Local Authority (LA) Governor
  • 1 Staff Governor
  • 2 Parent Governors

The Governing Board has two committees – the Pay Committee and Headteacher’s Performance Management Committee.  Governors have monitoring and other individual responsibilities and report on their activities to meetings of the full board. 

The Clerk to the Governors is Karen Fitzpatrick.

If you wish to contact the Governing Board please address correspondence to the Chair of Governors or the Clerk to Governors C/O the school. 

If you are interested in becoming a school governor, please enquire at the school office and we will contact you to talk about what the role involves and the opportunities that are available.  At the present time we are very keen to recruit governors from the local community.

These are the people in post, with their terms of office and governor responsibilities:

Governing Body

Term of office Responsibilities
Executive Headteacher
Caroline Cain 05/04/24 Ex Officio Governor, member of all committees except pay committee
Co-opted Govenors 3 vacancies
Jo Penn 06/5/20 – 05/5/24 Chair of Governors Headteacher’s Performance Management
James Ellwood 19/7/23 – 18/7/27 Safeguarding Headteacher’s Performance Management Pay Committee
Karen Makomereh 20/9/23 - 19/9/27 Pay Committee Finance Monitoring
LA Govenor
Margaret Moyle 23/3/23 – 22/3/27 Vice Chair of Governors Governor Monitoring Pay Committee Finance Monitoring
Parent Govenors
Alicia Logan 4/10/21 – 3/10/24 Liaison with Friends of Downsview
Jon Porter 31/3/23 - 30/3/27
Staff Govenor
Matthew Turner 3/10/22 – 2/10/25

Resignations this year

Christine Allsop end of term of office 19th May 2024

Jo Penn as of September 2024

Margaret Moyle as of September 2024

Business Interests

The governors declare their business interests annually and update them during the year if required.  There is a legal duty on all governors to declare any interest likely to lead to questions of bias when considering any item of business at a meeting and for the governor concerned to withdraw, if necessary, whilst the matter is considered.

This is the summary from May 2024:

Governing business interests

Governor Business interests
Caroline Cain Headteacher, New Ash Green Primary School
Jo Penn Trustee at Connect Schools Academy Trust
James Ellwood None
Karen Makomereh None
Margaret Moyle Trust Governor at Horton Kirby School On the local governing body and Trust Challenge committee of Alethia Trust Academy Schools
Alicia Logan Member of Friends of Downsview Employed in school
Jon Porter None
Matthew Turner Employed by school Partner works in school

Business and Pecuniary Interests – governors who have left with the past 12 months

Business and Pecuniary Interests

Governor Business interests
C Allsop None
Luke Donnellan None
Abbie Fulks None

Governors’ Attendance at meetings 2022-23 Academic Year

Governors’ Attendance at meetings

Full Governing Board Apologies accepted
James Elwood 1/1 0
Margaret Moyle 8/8 0
Christine Allsop 8/8 0
Alicia Logan 8/8 0
Luke Donnellan 7/8 1
Jo Penn 6/8 2
Jon Porter 1/1 0

Updated annually