Our Governing Board

St Bernadette's School Governance

Welcome to St Bernadette’s Website. Below is some information that you may find useful – together with a since Thank You to our staff, parents and Community for their ongoing hard work and support particularly over the past 18 months. This has been particularly critical at this time given the Challenges of COVID-19.

Our key aim is to:

•  Recruit, appoint and support the best teachers and staff to ensure the highest possible level of education and support for children placed in our care; within a framework of effective Governance.
• Our Principles, Mission, Vision and Key Strategic Objectives are outlined in detail in our Strategic Plan (embedded below)

The key roles of our Governing Board are:

• Setting the school’s Vision, Ethos and Strategic Direction
• Holding the Head teacher to account for the Educational Performance of the School and it’s pupils
• Overseeing the financial performance of the school and making sure available resources are appropriately spent and in line with our key aim.

We work closely with MK Local Authority (MKLA) and as a Catholic School within the Vision, Values and Policies of Northampton Dioceses (NORES) and the Department for Education (DfE)

There are 14 Governors;

• 8 Foundation Governors are appointed by His Lordship the Bishop of Northampton Catholic Dioceses, The Right Reverend David OAKLEY
• 1 Governor appointed by Milton Keynes Local Authority
• 2 Governors elected by parents
• 1 Governor elected by the staff.
• Our Head Teacher - Mrs Jane Zamora

The Governing Body meets monthly with the exception of holiday periods December, February and August

In between Board meetings “Lead Governors” make visits to the school and report to Board on their in-depth findings. Each and every Governor has a “Key Lead” Role to exercise, covering all areas of the school:

• Head Teacher Performance
• Mental Health and Wellbeing
• Pupil Premium
• Child Protection and Safeguarding
• Curriculum/ Pupil/achievement – with key Leads for specific areas that the Governing Board wants to look at in more detail
• Finance
• Admissions and Appeals
• Health and Safety
• Statutory and Policy Development and Monitoring
• Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND)
• GDPR (General Data Protection Regulations)
• Complaints and Suggestions

In response to the COVID-19 challenges we established a Board COVID-19 Sub Committee – a “rapid respond” and planning Committee to preempt and plan and respond to the ever changing situation. This Committee formulated an agreed Strategy outlining our key objectives – placing ongoing Education and Safety of our Pupils, staff and families at the centre of all our plans.  The Chair of Governor's Annual Report of Covid-19 is embedded below.

On-going update of our Website and communication from Mrs Zamora has kept our families abreast of developments.

St Bernadette’s opened in 2005 and we are particularly fortunate that our school community has shown tremendous interest and support since then.

The last OFSTED Inspection gave us some valuable feedback on our areas of strength and those we needed to focus on and recent monitoring has shown that those have been tackled successfully. We were hoping for an OFSTED revisit this year – to demonstrate our achievement but this has not been possible due to COVID-19

We are confident as we go forward to meet the challenges and changes ahead that by continuing to work closely with the NORES, MKLA and our parents and local community St Bernadette’s will continue to strive to provide the best education possible in an efficient, effective and transparent manner.

It is with this invaluable support and the hard work of our staff and Governors demonstrating total commitment to the safety and education of our pupils that we move forward as a school.

Mary McGowan
Chair of Governors

2020/21 Governors   

GOVERNORS

Ms M McGowan - Chair Of Governors
Mr G Callan - Foundation Governor/ Vice Chair

Ms R Anugwom - Foundation Governor/ Vice Chair

Dr S Lanzon-Miller - Foundation Governor

Mr B Plunkett - Foundation Governor

Mr C Edordu  - Foundation Governor

Fr Seery - Foundation Governor

Mrs F Lazzari - Foundation Governor

Miss A Kerrigan - Local Authority Governor

Mrs A Upton - Parent Appointed Governor

Ms Anne Wilshin - Parent Appointed Governor
Mrs J Pughe - Staff Governor

Mrs J Zamora - Headteacher

Ms F Vines - Clerk to Governors