Membership of the Governing Body includes the Head teacher, a staff member, two Foundation Governors, two parent governors and 4 co-opted Governors.  Our role at the school is strategic and one of support and challenge to ensure that children have the best possible education and experience in line with our Vision and Values.  Monitoring the culture and ethos of the school is a key role, such as a ‘foster a nurturing school community’ where all can thrive.

Governors are volunteers whose experiences and expertise are used to monitor school improvement.  To help us in that role, we undertake continuous training to support our link specialist roles such as Health & Safety, Safeguarding, Pupil Premium, SEND (Special Education Needs), wellbeing and EYFS (Early Years Foundation Stage).  Currently, we have two vacancies – a co-opted and Foundation governor, if you know of anyone who is interested, please let me know!

Governors meet formally 6 times a year as a Circular Model, and we are supported by our Clerk Professional to ensure that every meeting has the correct agenda and that we are compliant.  We undertake no operational duties, but we are responsible for approving policies and checking that are they correctly applied.  We each visit the school at least 3 times a year on a planned Monitoring Visit to have strategic oversight of our Link governor role and monitor aims of the school improvement plan.  Visits can involve meeting with children and staff, checking the budget monthly, shadowing external visits and making additional informal visits to school events.

The Governing Body helps the school to provide the best possible education for its pupils by: 

• Setting the school's vision and strategic aims, agreeing plans and policies and making creative use of resources

• Monitoring and evaluating performance, supporting and challenging the headteacher in the management of the school,

• Ensuring that the school is accountable to the children and parents it serves, to its local community, to those who fund and maintain it, as well as the staff it employs.

Anna Webber BA (Hons), MA, FdA, Cert Ed. - Chair of the Governing Body

As Chair of the governing body, Anna’s focus is to provide an excellent education for all, driven by an aspirational, accessible curriculum and an exciting learning environment.

With the Head Teacher and governors, her aim is to use the School’s vision and values as a platform, for an ambitious journey over the next 3 to 5 years - creating a motivated, passionate, ethos for teaching and learning.

As a Chair, Anna combines career experiences from working in analytical research, as flight crew, lecturing, and as a Faculty Head of Higher Education.  These roles developed skills in leadership, managing finance, teaching and learning, educational quality assurance, staff development and student engagement. 

Having completed her last degree in Management in 2012, she has a strong belief that life-long learning should be available to all.  Anna sat on various learning & teaching boards at three universities, chaired meetings within the faculty, sat on several committees, published, and wrote degree level programmes. 

Anna appreciates the wonderful school location and is keen to improve links to the local community, some of which have been affected during lockdowns.  As a mother of three children and four grandchildren, Anna has high expectations for every child’s learning experience, where all have the best opportunities to fulfil their potential.  

Claire Ledger - Vice Chair of the Governing Body

Safeguarding and Wellbeing Governor

Claire first became a Governor at Littlebourne School in March 2021.   She has experience of safeguarding children, young people and adults and became a governor to use her personal and professional experience to support the children, governing body and parent community in achieving its goal to continue to provide the children with the best possible educational experience.   

Claire is a keen runner and sports enthusiast and is always looking for new challenges, with the London Marathon top of her list this year. 

Megan Nee

Megan is a Secondary School Literary Lead for a Trust in Kent. Megan cares deeply about ensuring all children leave school being confident, fluent readers that give them the skills to be life long learners and successful members of society.

She has experience teaching English in inner city London schools and most recently rural Canterbury. She is particularly keen to ensure that all children have access to literature from diverse authors who are traditionally marginalised from the literary canon. 

Megan has also worked in an education-based start-up when she lived in the USA, so is passionate about using technology in the classroom to help students make excellent progress.

Outside of the classroom, Megan enjoys films, cooking and the great outdoors!

Dr William Dunn

Dr William Dunn is an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at University College London. He has held roles at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (USA), the European Space Agency (Spain) and at UCL's Mullard Space Science Laboratory (UK). He is particularly passionate about education equity and improving inclusivity and diversity in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects. In this endeavour, he has run the Orbyts research-with-schools programme since 2017, which alongside many awards, won the 2021 NEON award for widening access to education in the UK. 

Will grew up in Thanington and is excited to be back in the area, and particularly to have the opportunity to support Littlebourne school’s vision for pupil premium and SEND students. 

Arabel Thomson - Foundation Governor

Arabel was appointed as a Foundation Governor by the Canterbury Diocesan Board of Education in July 2023.  She brings a passion for education for all, combined with career experience in data analytics and marketing, and skills in leadership, strategy, planning and budgeting.  As a mother to two children, she understands the importance of achieving the best possible outcomes for all children so they are well equipped to deal with all that the world will throw at them. 

Arabel has recently moved to the Canterbury area, and she is excited to have the opportunity to work closely with the school, whilst supporting and encouraging Littlebourne’s Christian ethos and values.

In her spare time, Arabel enjoys walking, yoga and cooking. 

Staff Governors

Mrs Samantha Killick (Headteacher)

Mrs Charlotte McLean (SENCO)

Clerk to the Governing Body

Linda Walkerdine :- linda.walkerdine@theeducationpeople.org

FGB Meetings 2023-2024

27 September 2023 

29 November 2023 

31 January 2024 

20 March 2024 

22 May 2024

26 June 2024

17 July (Strategy) 2024

Minutes are available on request from school office.