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  • Church Hill Nursery School
  • Low Hall Nursery School

All about our Governing Body

Our two schools have one Governing Body, which helps us share knowledge and maintain best practice. It also stimulates ideas and drives improvement. The Governing Body has overall responsibility for ensuring the highest standards of education are provided in both schools, and for setting the strategy for future development.

On this page:

  1. What the Governing Body does
  2. Who's who
  3. Instrument of Government
  4. How governance works
  5. Transparency
  6. Approved minutes of meetings

What the Governing Body does

Governors work in close collaboration with the staff and parents to ensure high-quality education and care in a welcoming environment. To do this, the Governing Body formulates relevant policies and sets aims and objectives which are addressed in the annual School Development Plan for the two schools. You can read the Plan and all about our values, plans, and aims on the 'Where we are now, where we want to be, and our plans to get there' page of this website. Governors' scrutiny at Church Hill and Low Hall covers these areas:

  • planning and development of the educational curriculum and extended services
  • children’s learning progress and all-round development
  • policy-making and review
  • the staff teams, and professional training
  • the school budgets and fund-raising
  • maintenance and improvements to the buildings and school grounds.

Governors are always happy to meet with families to talk about their role and how the shared vision for young children is being put into practice, and to follow up on suggestions, ideas and comments they contribute.

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Who's who

Our Governing Body is made up of:

  • the Executive Headteacher and 1 member of staff who is voted for by all staff at both schools
  • 2 parent governors
  • 1 Local Authority governor, proposed by the London Borough of Waltham Forest
  • 5 co-opted governors: people from our local community, chosen for their particular expertise
  • Occasionally, an associate governor is appointed.

This combination of volunteers is designed to bring a range of expertise and engagement which can understand and challenge the school operations in a supportive yet critical way.

Our current governors and their responsibilities are:

Name Governor Type Term From Term To Roles
Mark Brown Co-opted governor 6 May 2025 5 May 2029 Vice Chair of Governors, Business, Safeguarding, Filtering & Children's Welfare Link Governor
Helen Currie Executive Headteacher
 		 n/a n/a all committees
Sally Davey Co-opted governor
 		 3 Oct 2022 3 Oct 2026 Chair of CLD, Link for PSED & SEND
Pauline France Local Authority governor
 		 1 Feb 2023 1 Feb 2027 Business, Children's Play & Learning
Abrar Malik Co-opted governor 5 May 2025 4 May 2025 Chair of Governors, CLD
Jana Mills Co-opted governor
 		 4 Sep 2022 4 Sep 2026 Business, Link for Sustainability & Equalities
Lindsay Read Staff governor 15 October 2023 15 October 2027 CLD
Katie Stone Parent governor 6 November 2024 5 November 2028 Business
Katy Thompson Associate Member 31 August 2024    
Austin Ventour Parent governor 6 November 2024 5 November 2027 Business
Mrs Caroline Russell Clerk
 		 n/a   Clerk

 

Former governors who have stepped down during the past 12 months:

Name Appointed by Term of office Date of appointment Date they stepped down
Paula Vaz Cudna Co-opted Governor 2 years 25 February 2023 28 March 2025
Ms Aalia Chaudhary Parent governor 3 years 1 September 2021 31 August 2024
Ms Katy Thompson Parent governor 3 years 1 September 2021 31 August 2024
Mr Peter Dawe Co-opted Governor At least 35 as a governor in Waltham Forest Schools, the last 9 at the FANS Federation Peter was a founding governor of the FANS Federation, having served as a governor at Low Hall Nursery School for some time previously. We are most grateful for his service and his support. 1 February 2023

Instrument of Government

Click here to view the Instrument of Government

How governance works

There are four ways the governors and schools meet:

  1. Link Governors take responsibility for specific areas. They make visits to the schools, usually once a term and during school hours, to have in-depth discussions with staff and observe how their area of interest is working. After the visit, they write a report which is circulated to all governors.
  2. From Summer 2025, two sub-committees meet every term: Business and Children's Learning and Development. These meetings have detailed discussion and make recommendations to the Full Governing Body. As the need arises, governors sit on recruitment boards, disciplinary committees, and complaints panels.
  3. Full Governing Body meetings of all governors are held once a term. Parents who are interested can attend as observers.
  4. From time to time, some governors also join working parties with staff leaders to draw up new policies or guidance, or to work on a particular matter.

You can see which governor does which role in the 'who's who' section of this page.

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Transparency

We pay the Local Authority to clerk our meetings; we don't write our own minutes. These minutes (confidential items excepted) are made public on this page.

The clerk records governors' attendance at meetings, who is on which committee, and who the link governors are for particular subjects. Governors declare at the start of each year and at the start of each meeting whether they have any financial (pecuniary) or personal interest in any agenda item, and their Declarations of Pecuniary Interest are minuted by the clerk. Below are the latest summaries:

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Approved minutes of meetings

Minutes are signed off at the meeting after they are taken. The minuted acceptance is available the term after that. As meetings are termly, ratified minutes are always posted here two terms in arears. As minutes are now signed off digitally, minutes no longer show handwritten signatures or initials.

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