Governors at Eynsham Community Primary School

The Governors work closely with Mrs Bayliss (Executive Headteacher), Mrs Edwards (Head of School)  and staff at Eynsham Community Primary School and form the Local Governing Board (LGB) for the school.  Eynsham Community Primary School is part of the Eynsham Partnership Academy Trust and the EPA scheme of delegation https://www.epa-mat.org/schemes-of-delegation/ sets out the roles, structure and responsibilities of the LGB. Please also see statutory information below.   

The Governors are responsible for:

• setting the school’s strategic direction, vision and ethos,
• ensuring compliance with statutory regulations,
• holding the school’s leadership to account for the education of its pupils and management of its staff, and
• being accountable for the school’s finances, including ensuring that its funding has the best possible impact on the children in the school.

The LGB was set up in January 2020 and replaced the Rapid Improvement Board which the EPA had set up as a small group to work intensively with the headteacher and senior team to move the school out of the Ofsted ‘Requires Improvement’ category.  Following the successful Ofsted inspection in autumn 2019, which categorised the school as ‘Good’, the RIB was renamed the LGB and is gradually expanding its membership to fully reflect the school’s community.  

Governors are appointed from various sectors of the school’s community: parents/carers, staff, others who have skills and experience in education and leadership, and people working in the local community.

Meeting dates for the academic year 2024-2025 are as follows:

Thursday 19th September 2024

Thursday 3rd October 2024

Thursday 5th December 2024

Thursday 13th February 2025

Thursday 27th March 2025

Thursday 8th May 2025

Thursday 10th July 2025 

Governor Members

Peter Leonard  - Chair of Governors 

Peter has been a teacher, deputy headteacher and head of school in primary education. He has also been a Governor and Chair of Governors for local primary schools, Chair of a small Multi Academy Trust and trustee and Chair of Trustees for various charities. Peter is passionate about the importance of emotional health for everyone and is keen to see both greater awareness of and a framework of support for people to improve their emotional health and relationships. Peter is Chief Executive of The Centre for Emotional Health.

Charles Mathew - Academy Governor

Charles Mathew qualified as an Accountant, read Archaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge and worked for many years in Corporate Finance in the City of London, latterly as a Company broker. He has lived in Stanton Harcourt for over forty years and was Oxfordshire County Councillor for Eynsham 2006-2021. He remains committed to the community in the Eynsham District.

Lisa Podbery - Co-opted Governor

Lisa has worked at the School for the past 21 years in the admin office and for the last 9 years as School Manager. Her role is to manage the finance, support services, admin and premises teams and to provide a back up to the Headteacher.

Annie Billington - Staff Governor

Annie Billington has worked in the school for 7 years and her current role is a Higher Level Teaching Assistant. She also is the Attendance Officer. 

Nicola Wilson - Academy Governor

Nic Wilson was formerly the Committee Chair and a Designated Safeguarding Lead at Eynsham Pre-school (now our Cygnets class). She's a Head of Acquisition at Oxford Univeristy Press, and she works with clinicians and academics across several medical areas, including Public Health and Paediatric Care. Nic has two children at the school.

Victoria Clark - Vice Chair 

Victoria has worked in education for 16 years as an English Teacher across 2 Oxfordshire Secondary Schools, including being Head of English for 6 years. She has a wealth of Pastoral experience, most recently as a Head of Upper School leading on Raising Standards in Behaviour for Learning. Victoria is an Eynsham resident and has 3 children currently educated at the school.

Zoltan Biro - Academy Governor

Zoltan Biro has been the minister of Eynsham Baptists Church for the past 9 years. He read Theology at Oxford and recently got a PhD in Cognitive Sociology of Religion from King’s College London. Previous to his relocation to UK he was involved with education at various levels: teaching Geography and History at a secondary school, teaching New Testament for adults at weekends and Greek and New Testament at a Theological College in Romania. He is an avid reader and passionate about technology.

Marion Everist - Parent Governor

Marion has worked in education for over 20 years, initially as a teacher and now as an Educational Psychologist. Marion lives in Eynsham and has two children, one at Eynsham Community Primary School and one at Bartholomew School.

Joanna Gill - Parent Governor

Jo is a parent governor with 2 children at the school. She works as a clinical psychologist in an NHS child and adolescent mental health service, and in post-graduate education at Oxford University. 

Catherine Kernot - Parent Governor

Catherine leads on internal communications at open science publisher Frontiers. She has a background in research communication in the NHS and the University of Oxford, where she also worked in development and philanthropy for many years. Her son attends Eynsham Community Primary and her daughter recently moved up to Bartholomew school. 

Roger Cabera - Parent Governor

Roger has a background in business, where he has held roles in strategy, operations, finance and talent development. He lives in Eynsham, and is a parent of a child currently at Eynsham Primary. 

Lucy Dickinson - Clerk to the Governors

Lucy has joined as Clerk to the Governors. Currently self-employed as a governance professional, as well as doing freelance environmental, educational and publishing-related consultancy. Lucy has an academic background in chemistry, with several years’ experience in science publishing, and grants administration. She is also clerk for three other schools and a governor at Bartholomew School, as well as leading the EPA advisory board on climate and biodiversity.

Communication with the Governors

The Board will continue to keep all parents and carers regularly informed of the progress ECPS is making through the governor's and school’s newsletters and website.

 Clerk to the Governors can be contacted at governor@eynshamapps.co.uk