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