St Joseph's Catholic Primary School

Staffing, Performance Management & Safeguarding

John Apicella-  Chair

Standards & Curriculum

Catholic Ethos & Admissions

Staffing, Performance Management & Safeguarding

Finance & Premises

Full Board

10/12/2018

02/11/2018

26/09/2018

27/11/2018

18/09/2018

19/03/2019

29/01/2019

21/11/2018

22/01/2019

06/11/2018

16/07/2019

26/02/2019

05/03/2019

18/12/2018

11/06/2019

03/07/2019

02/04/2019

12/02/2019

25/06/2019

26/03/2019

30/04/2019

23/07/2019

Category of governor

Name of governor

Appointed by

Term of office

Committee membership

Any position of responsibility

Foundation Governor

John Apicella

Bishop of Diocese of Portsmouth

23.06.15 – 22.06.19

Catholic Ethos  & Admissions; Finance & Premises

Health & Safety

Chair of Catholic Ethos & Admissions

John Apicella  Currently in retirement and now having time to become a Governor, I spent the majority of my work time in senior sales and marketing roles within the grocery trade prior to becoming self employed as a mortgage broker before retirement. I have three grandchildren currently attending the school so I felt it was important to become involved and help them to enjoy their time at school. I feel I can bring experience of both sales and marketing as well as a mature and full understanding of most general subjects along with common sense. I am good at objective setting and reaching deadlines.

Foundation Governor

Paul Dykes

Bishop of Diocese of Portsmouth

17.03.15 – 16.03.19

Catholic Ethos  & Admissions

Paul Dykes is a father of 3, married to the long suffering Mrs Dykes and hold a demanding pan European job for a large US corporate company. Paul wanted to be a governor for a number of reasons: his family have been involved with the school for over 3 decades, Catholic education and formation are very important to him, he has skills to offer as well as opportunities to learn and he wants to help to sustain the important role of the school for the community.

Foundation Governor

Sinead Hall

Bishop of Diocese of Portsmouth

01.09.18 – 31.08.22

Staffing, PM & Safeguarding; Standards & Curriculum; Finance

Chair of Governors

Inclusion & Equalities Governor

Chair of Finance

Sinéad Hall has been a school governor since 2003 and a parent of the school since Sep 2007. She has three children ages 12, 10 and 7 and two are attending the school (years 6 and 2). She has taken the position of Chair of Governors twice and her current term of appointment started in May 2014. She has also held the Vice-Chair position prior to her first term of appointment as Chair. She has chaired the Finance Committee and the Admissions Committee and held several areas of special responsibility with a particular interest in raising standards, whole school improvement and senior leaders appointment and recruitment. Sinéad has led or participated as a governor in the past four Ofsted inspections of the school.  Sinéad also serving as a governor of another Reading based church primary school for 18 years stepping down in 2015 due to increasing work commitments. This has given her a range and depth of experience in school governance.

Sinéad was born and grew up in North London to Irish parents. She was educated at state Catholic primary and secondary schools. She graduated from University College, Durham in 1994 where she studying History. She then started work as a commercial graduate for British Gas plc working as a commercial negotiator and she attended the College of Law Guildford part-time (from 1996 to 2000) where she completed post-graduate studies in law and qualified as a solicitor in 2002. Sinéad has held various corporate in-house legal roles initially as working as a commercial and corporate lawyer in the oil and gas industry later specializing in employment, privacy, human rights law and corporate social responsibility. She currently works as an Ethics and Compliance Manager for EMEA for a multinational diversified power company where her role is focused on investigating and resolving internal whistleblowing complaints, training employees and executives on ethics and compliance issues.

Sinéad moved to Newbury in 2000 and became a regular parishioner at St Joseph’s Catholic Church where she is a member of the choir, mass reader and volunteer for tea duty.   

As Sinéad was the first person in her extended family to attend university, she considers her role as a governor to be a privilege that allows her to give something back to the Catholic education system that has given choices and great career opportunities. She is most passionate about ensuring that all children are given equal opportunity to fulfil their potential, irrespective of their background, social status or family circumstances. She demands excellence from state Catholic education. She considers her primary role as Chair is to ensure that she and her fellow governors use all of their combined skills, talents, and experience for the benefit of all the children at the school – by effectively supporting and equipping the school to improve and raise education standards; by setting high expectations for the children’s attainment and the quality of teaching at the school; and by delivering this within a Catholic ethos that is loving, vibrant, evangelizing and inclusive. 

When Sinéad has any spare time….she likes to sing in a band called “Kafoozelum” performing at local open-mike venues. She loves to visit the theatre, cinema and to travel with and, at time, without the children. She is also always planning on getting fitter so perhaps 2016 will be the year.

Foundation Governor

Elizabeth O’Keeffe

Bishop of Diocese of Portsmouth

16.02.16 - 11.02.20

Staffing, PM & Safeguarding

 Chair of Staffing, PM & Safeguarding; Safeguarding Governor.

Elizabeth O'Keeffe worked in the field of education for 33 years teaching in primary and special needs schools moving to community and youth services in 1981. In 1999 she retired from full time work as the Berkshire County Youth & Community Officer for Reading. She currently volunteers locally as a Trustee at Time To Talk , the counselling service for young people. Also a an adviser at Newbury Citizens Advice Bureau, steward at the Corn Exchange, various roles at St Francis De Sales and was a Newbury Town Councillor. She  strongly supports social justice and believes that a sound moral and academic education are the key to individual development and life chances.

Foundation Governor

Toby Tyler

Bishop of Diocese of Portsmouth

23.06.15 – 22.06.19

Catholic Ethos  & Admissions

Vice Chair of Governors

Toby Tyler. Toby graduated from St Anne's College, Oxford University in 1996 before studying law at City University, London and currently works as an in-house corporate lawyer. Toby has been a parent at St Joseph's since September 2002 and a school governor since November 2005. He has chaired the Communications Committee, been a member of the Admissions Committee, run the School's Diocesan Building Fund, and has worked as RE Governor and as a Special Projects Governor. He has represented the School on the Diocese of Portsmouth's Pastoral Area Council for West Berkshire.  Toby and his wife Lucy have lived in Newbury since July 1999. They are active in school and parish life. In his spare time Toby enjoys running, dog-walking and supporting his sons in their musical and sporting activities. 

Head Teacher

Nikki McVeigh

Ex-officio

N/A

Finance; Staffing, PM & Safeguarding; Standards & Curriculum; Catholic Ethos  & Admissions

Nicola McVeigh has been Headteacher at St Joseph’s since September 2014. Previously, she worked at a Catholic Primary School in Reading for 17 years and, before that, at a Catholic Primary School in London. She currently lives in Reading with her husband and two children. “ It is an honour and privilege to serve the community at St Joseph‘s”. 

Staff

Jenny Hill

Elected by staff

19.01.18 – 18.01.22

Standards & Curriculum

Jenny Hill  has been teaching at St Joseph's since 2013, working in both KS2 and KS1. Her priority is to  inspire children and foster a llifelong love of learning. She believes in providing a rounded education with lots of opportunities for extra-curricular experiences.  Jenny is now KS1 Co-ordinator, English and Music Co-ordinator and lead teacher in Year 2. 

Local Authority

Stephen Wasko

Elected by Governing Body

15.12.15 - 14.12.19

Standards & Curriculum; Staffing, PM & Safeguarding

Chair of Standards & Curriculum Committee

Parent

Anthony Battrum

Elected by parents

20.05.15 – 19.05.19

Finance & Premises

Anthony Battrum gained nearly 10 years management experience before studying Engineering at University and is now an Engineering Programme Manager on major public sector infrastructure programmes. Anthony is currently working towards dual Chartership in both Engineering and Management.  Anthony and his family moved to Newbury in 2010 with one child attending the school and is a member of St. Joseph’s parish.  Anthony brings a strong balance of Project, Financial and Personnel Management experience to the governing board, regularly working with experts from other professions to deliver the best outcome and is keen to help utilise that knowledge for the benefit of St Josephs.  Having attended Catholic primary and secondary schools Anthony knows from first hand the benefits of a faith based education and that the skills and experiences that brings do last a lifetime.

Parent

Lucy Shannon

Elected by parents

03.11.16-02.11.20

Finance & Premises

Lucy Shannon is an IT professional with experience in cyber security, IT outsourcing, pursuit management, service delivery leadership and business process automation.  As a Non-Executive at Department of Business Energy and Industrial Strategy, Lucy forms part of the Audit and Risk Assurance Committee which provide appropriate independent over sight and advice on overall governance arrangement. As a senior account director with MWR InfoSecurity, Lucy helped many organisations to address cyber security and protect their networks and services.  Whilst at Xerox, Lucy co-founded the Women’s Network at Xerox with the aims of inspiring, developing women, connecting externally with clients and internally to support diversity.  Lucy has three children at St Josephs.

Kelly Bosher

Kelly Bosher qualified as a teacher in 1998 at St Mary’s University, Twickenham where she later completed a Masters Degree in Catholic School Leadership. Prior to joining St Joseph’s in September 2015 as Deputy Headteacher, she worked at a large Catholic school in Slough for 17 years. She has also been a Visiting Lecturer on the Primary Education Programme at St Mary’s University . Kelly lives in Maidenhead and in her spare time she likes walking, reading and travelling.

Rachael House Gemmell